


The Transition Equilibrium

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Series: Maya Koothrappali [3]
Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, F/M, Multi, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Threesome - F/M/M, Threesome - M/M/M, Transgendered Character, Warning: Non-Graphic Violence, Warning: Transphobia, Warning: homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:44:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 86,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story takes place in an AU of <em>The Big Bang Theory</em> from season four onwards. It’s the sequel to <em>the world is gonna bend</em> and overlaps with <em>stars in our eyes (all through the night)</em>. Any mistakes are mine and not my beta readers’. Some dialogue and scenes are rewritten here from <em>stars in our eyes</em> and also the Raj/Haroon/Tanvir story, <em>The Experience Explanation</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: we’re just flesh with socks and locks and frocks

**Author's Note:**

> Dr Rumer’s clinic is a real place, used here without permission but with love for the woman who does such amazing work. Sarah, Danielle, and Janet only sort of belong to me. _The Big Bang Theory_ characters belong to Chuck Lorre and CBS and are used here without permission or for financial gain. ‘The Raven’ and ‘Annabel Lee’ are by Edgar Allen Poe. ‘Wild Nights’ is by Emily Dickinson. ‘The Good-Morrow’ is by John Donne. All are used here without permission or for financial gain.
> 
> Ultimately, my biggest thanks go to my beta readers, Jen, Danny, and Meg, and doubly so to Meg, who created the fanmix that forms the backbone (and chapter titles!) of this story.
> 
> Dedicated to Katie. Blessed be. Dedicated to Amber. Smutty be. Dedicated to Lily. Be whatever you wish.

**Now (February 2011): Waiting**

The saying that money can’t buy you happiness has always rung a bit hollow for Maya. Growing up, she had almost everything she could possibly want, thanks to her father’s income and her mother’s tendency to give in to her demands (albeit nicely phrased demands; Rupinder Koothrappali took no nonsense from her children). Now she’s no longer considered a Koothrappali child, but money is still figuring hugely in her happiness, namely Amy’s fiancé’s money. The agreement has been made; Faisal will pay for Maya’s gender confirmation surgery as soon as she can arrange a surgery date, partly out of generosity and partly out of the desire to see what research results Amy can come up with.

But the one thing money cannot buy is time, and the earliest that Maya can get into the clinic in Philadelphia is August. In February, August seems an eon away, Philadelphia light years from Pasadena. But she is bound and determined to wait it out as patiently as she can. She still has therapy to go to and electrolysis to undergo (painful, but more efficient than laser hair removal, and posing less risk of depigmentation of her skin), not to mention her local trans support group to back her up as well as her friends.

Then of course there’s Stuart. Stuart and his unexpected kisses and his unwavering support of her and his willingness to do everything her way, the safe way, the careful way. Fortunately, Maya’s body shyness is matched with Stuart’s lack of confidence; they can learn together, slow and steady, what works and what does not. There are a lot of things that work; some surprising, others less so. Not just in the bedroom, either, but in their day to day lives as they incorporate each other into their routines. She’s learning more about the other side of the counter when it comes to New Comics Day, for one thing, and Stuart has promised to come and visit her at work if he has a quiet day.

She just has to be more confident about herself, is the problem. At first she didn’t realize it was a problem, but she’s scared of scaring Stuart off, and of alienating her other friends, not to mention the rest of her family. Her therapist, Cecilia, has been telling her that she’ll gain more confidence as she progresses in her transition, but ironically Maya has very little confidence in that statement. She spends more of her time than she really should worrying; at least some of that time is worrying about whether or not she’s worrying too much, which is more or less a self-fulfilling prophecy.

One of the things she still worries about is coming out. It’s an ongoing process; she keeps remembering friends or colleagues or distant family members who don’t know that she is _her_ and not _him_ anymore. Even after the great Facebook Self-Outing Incident there are still people too oblivious – sometimes on purpose – to her status. She’s been asked if she’s her own sister, for heaven’s sake. At least Priya has her back on that front; Priya’s very clear about the number of brothers and sisters she has these days.

Maya just has to wonder, though, whether the process will ever be over, whether the world will ever truly know her as Maya and not Rajesh. Every time someone mentions her old name it grates a little more on her. She is coming to understand how some of her friends can refer to their old names as “slave names”. It’s horribly ironic considering that none of the servants from back home, not even her old ayah Mercy, will use either of her names anymore; her father’s rule held firm in the face of Maya’s long history of almost-friendship with them. She has mixed feelings about this; apart from anything else she feels guilty now that she ever crowed over the fact that her family had servants. Hiring a cleaner once in a while to go over her apartment is one thing (and it’s really only when she absolutely can’t bear to do the dusting); having actual all the time servants and _calling_ them servants, well, that’s an entirely different story.

She thinks she is running out of people to come out to, though. New people that she meets are meeting her as Maya, not as Maya who was Rajesh, and although some of them are skeptical it’s still a step forward. A big step, considering her first hesitant step back in December.

 

**Then (December 2010): Outing**

Leonard stares at the door through which Raj – Rajya; the time of Maya is yet to come – has just disappeared. He can hear voices in the stairwell and that’s a bad sign; one of them is Penny’s and it’s raised indignantly or something, and that’s worse.

She comes into the apartment without knocking, still in her uniform, well and truly riled. “Which one of you put Raj up to this?” she demands. “You know he’s vulnerable. You shouldn’t be messing with his head like this. Or mine.”

Howard opens his mouth to say something, probably something crass, but Leonard gets there first. “ _She_ isn’t as vulnerable as you think,” he says, pointedly stressing the pronoun. Some of his social skills might suck, but he knows from experience that trans people (and _Rajya_ is _trans_ ; it’s going to take some getting used to) hate being misgendered, and if they’re going to get used to it they need to start now. “She had the nerve to come out to us tonight, and you’re the only one who’s not cool with it.”

“Why would – I’m – are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious! Cross-dressing at Comic-Con is one thing, but this is no joke. It’s the real deal.”

“I wish he’d told us sooner,” Howard says. He still looks a little like Rajya smacked him with an anvil, instead of just turning up in girly jeans and makeup.

“She,” Leonard corrects him, not for the first time. He’s thinking of people his mother has counseled in the past, the few people she softened her harsh exterior around just a little to let them know they were safe. Little Leonard, six or eight or ten years old, watching Beverly Hofstadter sitting at the kitchen table, doling out tea and coffee and biscuits and tissues to men and women just discovering themselves.

Now he watches Penny’s face soften with realization, if not quite understanding. “Oh God. I should go after her,” she says, twisting her fingers together.

“You probably should.”

She leaves, not bothering to change out of her work clothes, or even to close the door behind herself; Leonard listens to her running down the stairs and watches Sheldon cross the room to wash out his tea mug as if nothing has happened. Maybe, to Sheldon, nothing has. Howard still has the smacked by anvil look on his face.

“Maybe I should go with her,” he starts.

“No, Howard. Penny’s got to do this alone.”

“Oh, for... this isn’t _Labyrinth_ , Leonard!”

Leonard thinks, _maybe not, but it’s the start of a big quest anyway._ He doesn’t try to explain this aloud, instead settling for, “I know, but I think Rajya would be more comfortable explaining it on her own instead of with any of us hovering.” He has to remember to be careful about the name and the pronoun; all childhood experience aside, it’s still a bit of a shock now that it’s someone he _knows_.

Sheldon returns to his spot. “Not to mention, Wolowitz, you aren’t exactly an expert on the social skills required for a conversation between women.”

Howard bristles. “Oh, and you are?”

“Guys, guys,” Leonard hastily interrupts. “Penny’s gone, it’s a moot point now, and we’ll all hear how it turns out soon enough, I’m sure.”

Just to be safe, though, he pulls out his phone and texts Penny with _Don’t yell at her_.

The indignant response a few seconds later is, _Y would I? she needs support!_ Leonard just hopes Penny wasn’t driving too fast at the time; her habit of texting while driving is bound to cause trouble one day. (He assumes the single punctuation marks are indicative of her keeping at least one eye on the road; she usually peppers her texts with exclamation marks.)

Howard and Sheldon snipe at each other a little longer before Sheldon announces his intention to go to bed, Howard announces _his_ intention to go to bed _with Bernadette_ , as if having a girlfriend he actually sleeps with somehow better qualifies him to know more about women, and Leonard does not announce his own intention to wait up for Penny, but just goes to make a cup of coffee and settle in at his computer.

After Howard leaves, the Vespa engine noise blending into the usual night noises of Pasadena, Sheldon gets on Skype and starts talking to Amy about Rajya. Leonard is too tired, and too realistically minded about how rumors spread, to shut him up. Better Amy hears it from Sheldon, who at least seems to be somewhat accepting of the situation, than from Penny, at least if Penny’s still being strange about it.

 

He hears Penny coming up the stairs an hour or so later, well after Sheldon’s gone to bed, and goes out to intercept her in the hallway. She looks exhausted and her mascara is streaky, but she smiles at him.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Apart from me being a total idiot to a good friend? Yeah. I feel awful, but I think she forgave me.” She sounds like she’s being careful with pronouns too. Leonard knows that it’ll come more naturally with time.

“Sheldon told Amy over Skype, and Howard’s probably told Bernadette by now.”

Penny grins and rolls her eyes. “Howard’s probably trying to talk Bernadette into some kind of kinky threesome or something.”

Leonard is unbalanced for a moment by her smile; he misses having twosomes, let alone threesomes. “Uh... yeah, maybe. Knowing Howard.”

“Yeah, well, knowing Bernadette, it ain’t gonna happen.” Penny moves towards her apartment door, fumbling for her keys. “I really need to shower now... my hair’s all greasy.” She makes a face indicating extreme disgust. Her hair looks more or less perfect, but then Leonard’s not an impartial judge. “Night, Leonard.”

“Yeah, night Penny.” He watches her go into her apartment and close the door before he goes back into his own apartment. He’s not sure that he’ll get to sleep any time soon, so he pre-empts insomnia by switching his computer on.

One of the first hits that his Google search nets him is for Caltech’s Center for Diversity. Before long, he’s immersed in a document about transgender terminology and has Caltech’s Nondiscrimination and Equal Employment Opportunity policy open in another tab to read next.

Whatever the rest of the world might think about Rajya, he for one is planning to be ready for any reaction his friend gets, and to defend her as much as possible. He’s not sure where this sudden burst of protectiveness has come from, but suspects his mother would say it’s something to do with how he never got to act as protector for his brother and sister. They got on fine on their own. Rajya, though, Rajya might need some help. Rajya doesn’t have the enforced thick skin of a Hofstadter. (Neither does Leonard, technically, but he’s not going to let that minor detail be an issue.)

If he can protect Raj from any of the storms that are sure to come her way, he wants to be as well-armed as possible, and knowledge is power.


	2. chapter one: every time we breathe out we let out a little bit of ourselves

**Now (February 2011): Moving (I)**

Maya’s face itches and burns for a couple of days after each electrolysis session and she’s not allowed to shave the remaining hairs because then they’ll be too hard to remove, so her face is patched with red hot dots and little dark hairs. She avoids her reflection in the mirror and tries to keep her head down at work. Stuart attempts to keep her spirits up by telling her how good she’ll look when it’s all done, but Maya just grumps about it not being done _yet_. Stuart’s also dropping quiet hints about Valentine’s Day, just a week from now, and Maya cringes every time she thinks about going out in public with her face the way it is. She’s wary of putting foundation on over the sore spots, but maybe she’ll do it anyway; Stuart has a way of looking very hopeful that makes it hard to say no to him. Plus she doesn’t want to say no to him. He’s trying so hard to please her and she’s not used to it. She’s used to being the one to bend over backward in a relationship. Stuart’s teaching her a lot of new ways to bend, in the mundane sense as well as the salacious.

Their relationship is only in its infancy; mere weeks have passed since the Warlords debacle and the destruction at Stuart’s store. Although everything is back in its place now, they still don’t know who called Maya out as not a real woman. Maya wishes Penny had managed to keep him pinned and at the same time doesn’t want to know which of Stuart’s clientele would be so nasty. He can’t afford to lose any regular customers; transphobic money is still money, and he’s being ridiculously evasive about exactly what his living arrangements are.

Maya’s own living arrangements make their relationship more complicated, with Priya still under her roof, sharing her bed some of the time and other times going over to Leonard’s. She’s been talking about finding her own place, though, and on the Sunday before Valentine’s Day Maya comes home from paintball to find her packing her suitcase.

“What’s going on?”

Priya gives her her best inscrutable gaze. “I told you I was finding my own place. Now I’ve found it.”

“You can’t make rent on your own,” is the first thing Maya manages, because _You can’t leave me alone_ isn’t polite and nor is _Great! Now Stuart can stay overnight!_

“I’m a _lawyer_ , Maya. Of course I can afford it. I’ve saved up the first and last month’s rent and the security deposit, and I’ve got an apartment just off Los Robles.”

“Nice and close to Leonard’s?” Maya says archly, and Priya blushes and smacks her arm. The exchange evens things out between them; the sinking feeling in Maya’s stomach fades mercifully away. Of course, paying rent on her own is going to be another issue altogether, but she thinks she’ll be able to manage, at least for a little while. The idea of Stuart moving in with her rises to the surface of her conscious mind again and she pushes it away sharply. She may not be all that experienced at relationships, but she’s pretty sure that asking him to make that sort of a commitment this early in the game would be a major faux pas.

But the thought doesn’t quite leave her mind entirely and, hoping that she’s doing the right thing, she goes out the next day after work and gets a spare apartment key cut. She has to buy a TARDIS keychain for it from somewhere other than the Comics Center, otherwise Stuart might realize what she’s up to and panic. She’s already seen him through one panic attack, after lunch on the day they put his store back together, and although she wants to support him she doesn’t know whether she can go through the terrifying experience of watching him freeze up, barely able to breathe normally, as he started apologizing over and over for one of his customers being the one to hurt her. As if it was his fault; as if he could have known what was going to happen before it did.

She still has her little black pig from that day, that amazing messy heartbreaking and heartwarming day. She’s started watching Ranma ½ and can see why Stuart said the pig was a suitable gift for her. (Okay, maybe a Ranma plushie would have been the most accurate, but she’s not sure how that would work.)

Sometimes it feels like they’ve been together forever, the days when everything goes smoothly and there’s nobody to look at them threateningly in the store if Maya slips behind the counter for a moment to steal a kiss or just to help Stuart open boxes. Other times the newness of their relationship is painfully sharp, like when Maya wants to invite Stuart to stay the night and can’t do it, not just because of Priya’s presence, but because her own self-doubt won’t allow her to make the offer.

When she comes home on Monday night, new key tucked away in her pocket to wrap up for Stuart, Priya’s absence is a palpable thing. Maya lasts half an hour in the empty apartment before she texts her sister to ask for her new address. A few minutes later she’s in her car and on her way.

 

The one bedroom, one bathroom apartment is cozy and stark at the same time. Priya’s putting together a bed frame when Maya arrives, and the two of them work screwdrivers in companionable silence until the frame is ready for its mattress.

“You didn’t waste any time shopping,” Maya says as they heave the mattress onto the frame.

“This has been in storage for a week.”

Maya does her best to raise one eyebrow. She’s not very good at it. “You really had this all planned out, didn’t you?”

Priya pauses in shaking out the fitted sheet over the mattress; it’s a muted brown almost the same color as her skin. “I didn’t want to worry you by talking about it, but yes, I did. I wanted to get out of your hair.”

“You weren’t in my hair,” Maya protests weakly.

“You have a new boyfriend, and I can’t keep bringing Leonard to your place, and Sheldon gives me the creeps. This is a much better arrangement.”

Maya catches the bottom of the sheet and pulls it down over the end of the mattress, smoothing the wrinkles out absently with her free hand. “It’s probably lucky Mummy and Papa are already not talking to us, because they’d disown me again if they knew I was letting you sleep with a white boy.”

“They’d have to disown _you_ for sleeping with a white boy first,” Priya snaps back, quickly as a cobra, but she’s smiling.

Maya blushes and shakes her head. “We haven’t slept together.”

“Ye-et,” Priya sing-songs. “I know now I’m out of your way you’ll have plenty more chances.”

“That’s true,” Maya says, and her hand presses for a second against her skirt pocket, in which rests the new apartment key and the square solid shape of the TARDIS keychain. She wonders if she should tell her sister about it, but decides not to; Priya might be able to give her advice about how fast to move in a relationship but considering that she’s dating Leonard it wouldn’t necessarily be the most normal of advice. Not that Maya thinks there’s anything wrong with Priya and Leonard together; it makes a funny sort of sense, considering how Leonard’s eyes bugged out the first time that he saw Priya. Well, it makes sense that way anyway. She’s not quite sure what Priya sees in Leonard and she really does not want to ask.

They finish making the bed; the pillows go into wine-red pillowslips that come crisp and clean out of their packets. Priya has a little nightstand as well, and Maya sets the time on her alarm clock while Priya hunts through a box, eventually coming up with a lush fluffy blanket that matches the pillows. Maya does not say anything about the red looking like something out of a brothel because either Priya will smack her for it or pointedly ask what she knows about brothels, and all she really knows is clichés from movies. Okay, and maybe some porn. Red and black always seem to feature heavily in porn, or at least in what little porn she’s seen. She’s always been more of a physical person than a visually oriented one and she’d much rather play out her own fantasies in her mind than watch someone else’s on a computer screen.

Thinking of fantasies leads her back to thinking of Stuart. He can be so introverted and retiring at times that it’s hard to reconcile public Stuart with private Stuart, her Stuart, the Stuart who has left a tiny but sharp love-bite over her left clavicle and who sometimes catches her when there’s nobody else in the store, pins her to the wall behind the counter, and kisses her senseless. New Comics Day may only be once a week but Maya finds a lot of other reasons to be there almost every day.

She still hasn’t gotten a straight answer out of him as to how long he’s been interested in her; was it since before she became Maya, or only since she began her transition? He either says nothing, or kisses her and tells her it doesn’t matter, or changes the subject. Maya suspects it’s at least since the signups for the Warlords of Ka’a tournament, since he got her to check the matchups list and she found her name on the list written neatly and correctly, not the _Raj Koothrappali_ she’d signed up with but _Maya K._ , printed in the same precise block capitals he signs his artwork with. Assuming it doesn’t get swept off the sketchpad and into the trash. His hesitance at expressing himself is acute when it comes to his drawing, even though she’s found out that he has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Stuart is, in fact, the only one of them who’s Californian born and bred, despite his interstate qualification. Maya herself and Priya are from India, of course; Sheldon from Texas, Penny from Nebraska, Leonard from way over in New Jersey, and Howard originally from Massachusetts. From New England in general, actually, until his mom decided they were finally moving somewhere warm, settled on the earthquake capital of the United States, and uprooted Howard just after he finished at MIT, transplanting him to Caltech and never quite paying attention to the fact that he’d finished high school, let alone college, let alone made some contacts who could have led him to a job that didn’t involve Sheldon’s constant mockery.

He’s hardly the model of a California boy, but then Maya supposes she’s not exactly the model of a California girl herself. Even Priya with her dark hair and caramel skin blends in better than Maya, at least in Maya’s mind. But on the other hand, she likes Stuart the way he is, all pale skin and shy eager smile and the way he layers an open button-down shirt over whatever geeky tee has caught his attention this time. To Maya at least, Stuart epitomizes what geeks can look like if they bother to put in the effort. Mind you, he is surrounded by some of the worst examples of geekdom, especially the ones who hover in the back room drooling over the hentai manga or whatever it is he keeps back there. Maya doesn’t go back there unless she’s going to the storage area, and even then she won’t go alone, because she has the distinct feeling that the sort of person who would make a snide transphobic anonymous comment in a crowd of geeks in black so that he can’t be identified is quite possibly the sort of person who lurks in comic store back rooms admiring tentacle porn.

But then Amy’s gone back there from time to time – on purpose, no less – and come out apparently unscathed, so who knows?

(Penny and Bernadette won’t step foot through the back room doorway. Priya doesn’t even come into the store if she can help it because she says she can feel the eyes on her like crawling cold fingers. Maya doesn’t push it.)

“Maya? Are you okay? You’ve been staring at the wall for five minutes.”

Maya shakes her head, not in negation, but just to clear it. “Sorry, I was daydreaming.”

A smile curves and softens Priya’s features. “I’ll bet you were. About your _boyfriend_.”

“I don’t know if I even get to call him that yet. We’ve only been dating for a few weeks.”

“Oh, please. He’s _obviously_ besotted with you. You could call him your puppy and he’d probably fetch you a leash.”

Maya mentally bats away the images that spring to mind at _that_ unexpected remark and shakes her head again, this time quite firmly in negation. “I don’t think so. We’re just taking it slow.” She moves to investigate the contents of the next box and the TARDIS keychain pokes her in the hip as if to gently remind her that she’s lying her ass off, at least in that sense. Okay, so there haven’t been _I love yous_ or anything beyond “It’s complicated” on Facebook or any of those solid reassurances that they’re doing anything more than figuring each other out and their positions in the universe relative to each other, but there is a definite gravitational pull between them. Mostly at the mouth, whenever they get the chance.

“I’m surprised you have the self-control to take it slow.” Priya upends the box on the bed, spilling cushions and throw rugs everywhere. “I don’t have a couch yet for these.”

“We could make a pillow fort,” Maya says, ignoring the first comment. Priya can be annoyingly forward about things from time to time, and Maya really doesn’t want to get into what is and isn’t appropriate date behavior with her. Mostly because she’s afraid Priya would use real-life examples, and she still doesn’t want to know that much about Leonard.

“You’re still such a child sometimes.”

“Technically I’m going through puberty.” Maya gestures at the small bumps on her chest. They still ache sometimes, but not as badly as they did in the beginning. “You can’t blame me for being a slave to my hormones.”

“Don’t even start with me about hormones,” Priya says, putting one hand briefly against her lower belly. Maya counts back in her head and realizes it is exactly the wrong time of the month to bring up hormones. She feels a brief prick of resentment; they happen from time to time, not always around her sister, either. She often feels not quite right around Penny, Amy, and Bernadette, all of whom have decided that she’s one of the girls, which is nice but comes with the attendant discussions of bodily functions to which Maya can’t be privy. It hurts to know that she won’t ever have the ability to bear her own child; she doesn’t particularly want to, especially given her current living situation, but she’d like to have the option.

They go into the kitchen and Priya makes tea for them both, getting the teabags out of a very bare cupboard. It’s a far cry from Maya’s own kitchen cupboards, which are always full of varieties of tea, dozens of spice jars, and all kinds of baking ingredients. Priya’s more likely to buy seven microwave dinners and freeze them to last her out the week, or maybe whip up something on the spur of the moment with ingredients she buys that day if inspired by the smell of food when she’s out somewhere. Maya can remember eating a lot of Priya’s home-cooked meals growing up, once the family realized she was a better cook than Rupinder. Perhaps that’s why she’s so resistant to cooking for herself now.

“So if you haven’t slept with Stuart yet, when are you going to?”

“Do you – is it even a _thing_ to ask your siblings who they’re fucking when?” Maya masks her indignance with profanity just to watch Priya’s cheeks go pink. “I bet you never asked Sanjay and Tariq about their girlfriends.”

“Neither of them would answer me,” Priya says comfortably. “They were too shy.” She perches on the edge of the counter – she doesn’t have a dining table and chairs yet either – and gives Maya a knowing look. “Girls talk, though.”

“Don’t tell me _Nanda_ tells you things about her love life.”

“Not a lot. She’s still too much of a baby.”

“She’s twenty-three!”

“A mere child,” Priya, who is all of a year and a half older than Nanda, sniffs.

“Well, you’re just my little sister,” Maya says. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Priya laughs. “And you’re my big sister, so I should be able to confide in you and expect the same in return!”

Maya winces. “I’d prefer it if you _didn’t_ confide in me, actually. I’d like to be able to play Halo with Leonard without worrying about his penis size.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s perfectly satisfactory.”

“ _Priya_!”

Priya just gives her a wicked grin and sips her tea, and after a moment Maya has to laugh, because really, it’s kind of nice to be able to have this conversation with her sister. She certainly can’t talk relationships – or anything else – with her mother now, and sometimes she really wishes that she could.

“I don’t know when we’re going to sleep together,” she admits, a little flare of excitement going off inside her just at the thought of it. “I don’t even know what we’d do. I... I don’t know if I want him touching me everywhere.”

“There’s a lot of everywhere _else_ to touch,” Priya shoots right back, and Maya gives up, outfoxed. She’s not sure that she’s comfortable with Priya speculating about her potential sex life, but maybe if she doesn’t squirm – more than she already has – Priya will give up.

Priya does, in fact, leave it there, but with a look on her face that suggests Maya hasn’t escaped just yet. They finish their tea and Maya washes the cups while Priya disentangles and plugs in the cords for the TV, DVD player, and her laptop. They look lonely in the corner of the living room, even if it is only small.

“When are you getting more furniture?”

“I’m bringing it out of storage tomorrow after work. Leonard’s going to help me.”

“You mean he’s actually going to forgo dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with Sheldon? What a heartrending decision to have to make.”

“You could _all_ come and help, you know,” Priya says pointedly.

Maya opens her mouth to say no automatically, and then thinks it through. If she helps Priya now, she’ll be able to say, “Don’t forget who helped you move all your stuff,” the next time Priya gets on her nerves. It’s an acceptable trade-off, and she texts Howard and Sheldon to see what they think of the idea.

 _Bernie’s working as well as Penny. I don’t want to miss seeing her_ , Howard replies a few seconds later.

_You’ll only get to see her when she brings you out your drink. It would really be helpful._

As soon as Maya sends this, her phone beeps again with another message. _Despite the fact that this disrupts my routine, I am forced to come to terms with the fact that if you and Leonard are not attending dinner my routine will already be disrupted, so I may as well offer what assistance I can. Dr Sheldon Cooper._

Maya idly wonders if Sheldon will ever stop signing his text messages. She doubts it. Naturally he’s quite aware of the fact that his name shows up along with his cell phone number on the screen anyway; he’s just got a special sort of unselfconscious arrogance that likes to manifest itself every time he has the opportunity to use his title. For all of that, though, at least he’s coming to help.

Priya’s on her phone sending messages as well; the little smile curving the corner of her lips tells Maya it’s Leonard. Finally she snaps the phone shut and announces, “Pizza party here tomorrow after moving.”

“Tuesday’s cheeseburger night for Sheldon. You’re going to throw off his schedule.”

“Then he can fold a slice over and _pretend_ it’s a burger.” Priya has a dangerous _get your weird off me_ look in her eyes. And that, it seems, is that.

 

Maya only thinks to text Stuart halfway through the next day to tell him about the move, and doesn’t get a reply for a couple of hours. This is pretty much standard; Stuart keeps his phone on silent in the store so he doesn’t look unprofessional if it rings while he’s serving a customer. (The customers are not nearly so polite; one of Stuart’s biggest bitches is about customers expecting to be served while they’re yapping away into their phones.) He checks it when nobody’s around, and business is good enough that that’s not as often as it used to be. Maya doesn’t mind, although sometimes she wishes she could contact him more reliably.

But when he does message back it’s to offer to help out, and she can’t keep from grinning, despite the fact that she’s having a bad face day and is sure people are talking about her in the cafeteria. Leonard, Sheldon, and Howard can only provide so much distraction from the fact that there are occasional prolonged glances in her direction followed by whispering.

“Don’t worry,” Leonard says close to her ear after the third time someone across the room turns to stare at her. “Caltech policy says they can’t harass you.”

“No, Caltech policy says if I can prove they’re harassing me I can do something about it. It’s not like a plus one shield versus assholes.”

Leonard pokes his sandwich dubiously with a fork, then opens it up and picks the slice of cheese out. “Yeah, well, just remember it’s there, okay? Not to mention we’ve all got your back.”

“Great. That’ll really help if Kripke decides to send his killer robot after me.” Kripke is one of the chief whisperers.

Leonard goes serious all of a sudden. Well, even more serious. “Has Kripke been saying things to you? You should tell us if he has. We can kick his ass for you.”

Maya tactfully does not point out that Leonard couldn’t kick Kripke’s ass if Kripke was tied face-down across a coffee table and just says, “He hasn’t said anything.”

It’s true. He hasn’t said anything. The writing on the wall in the unisex bathroom (supposed to be for disabled staff and students; Maya uses it because she’s afraid of going into the women’s, just in case someone decides she’s not meant to be in there) looks a lot like his, though, and it’s none too complimentary. Of course, anyone could write “and trannies” below the little wheelchair sign that’s on the door, but that doesn’t change Maya’s suspicions. After all, the bathroom’s just around the corner from Kripke’s office; he’s probably seen her go in there.

She debates whether or not to say anything and realizes a moment too late that she’s paused too long. Leonard puts his hand over hers on the table and squeezes, giving her a puppy-dog-eyed concerned look. “What did he do, Maya?”

Maya doesn’t say anything, but stands up, leaving her lunch untouched, and leads the three of them to the offending bathroom door, which Howard promptly kicks, real anger written clear across his face.

“You need to tell President Siebert,” Sheldon says; he looks calmer than Howard but his tone is troubled. “He can get it painted over—”

“If I make a big deal out of it people will know they can get to me.”

“If you don’t, they’ll only keep trying to see what _does_ get to you,” Leonard counters, with all the weight of years of elementary and high school bullying behind his words.

Maya puts up a token protest and then goes to see President Siebert.

 

“So what did he do about it?” Stuart’s arranging one of the throw rugs over the back of Priya’s new couch.

“He said he’d get maintenance to sand it off and see if they have the right color paint to go over it. That part of the building hasn’t been repainted in years, so the paint might not be around anymore, but they’ll work something out. Plus he’s thinking of putting a security camera in the hallway.”

Stuart gives her a quizzical look. “Isn’t that kind of violating your privacy?”

Maya shrugs. “It’s a public hallway. He can always say it’s to keep an eye on visitors around the dangerous lasers or something.”

“They’re only dangerous if you don’t pay attention to the safety procedures,” Leonard chimes in from across the room, where he’s doing something involving the TV cabinet and an Allen key that may or may not be actually putting it together.

“ _So_ not the point,” Maya says, straightening the fringe on the throw rug and absently pulling a loose strand free, winding it around her ring finger. Stuart’s gaze drops to her hand and, blushing, Maya pulls the thread free and shoves it in her pocket. She’s wearing her favorite embroidered jeans tonight and a jade green top with three-quarter length sleeves to show off the gold bangles on each wrist. Not exactly ideal moving attire, but Priya had professionals to bring in the heavy stuff and arranging a few cushions isn’t exactly an arduous (or dirty) task. Considering the professional movers, Maya suspects that Priya just asked them here to have a housewarming of sorts. She realizes she’s never heard Priya talk about anyone from work or outside of their little circle; does she even have friends here or are they all back in India? And what do they think of Priya’s brother becoming her sister?

 

**Then (December 2010): Unfriending**

_I can’t believe your brother’s some kind of hijra freak._

_what’s this “transgender”_ _pakhānā_ _? your brother is so gay!_

_Your brother is a disgrace to your family, you should disown him like your parents did._

That’s only some of the messages left on Priya’s Facebook wall after Maya’s public name and gender change.

Priya reads each message, mentally notes down whoever left it, and then deletes it before removing the writer as a friend. One or two of them send her messages almost immediately to apologize and say they were only joking. Priya deletes these as well. More than one or two send messages that aren’t reconciliatory in the slightest, and Priya deletes those as well.

Maya’s asleep after a long day of cleaning the apartment after the unexpected party, so she isn’t witness to the tears sliding down Priya’s face as she erases friendship after friendship. But blood ties are more important than ever as far as Priya’s concerned; their parents and older brothers might not consider them family anymore, but Priya’s determined to keep the parts of her family that work.

Like Nanda, their little sister, who sends Priya a message to say that their parents are furious, Daddy in particular, but that she’s going to save up all her money and come to America as soon as she can. Like Manoj, youngest of the family at twenty-one, determined nonetheless to ignore their father’s ire and send silly cat macros to Maya and Priya’s walls in spite of the directive to cut off contact with the two outcast Koothrappali children. And like Haroon and Tanvir, not family, but close enough to it; Raj’s friends while growing up (and if their mother had been privy to that little fact, she might not have been so enamored of their “sweet” openly gay relationship and their adorable adopted child).

Her profile page still lists Rupinder and Vijay Koothrappali as her mother and father. Priya’s mouse hovers over the “remove” link, but in the end she doesn’t click it. Let them choose whether or not to oust her from the family like her sister (as Maya is now listed on her Facebook family page; she took pride in changing that particular relationship status). She plans to support her as much as she can, including rubbing the fact in the faces of their parents for as long as possible.

She shuts the computer down and tiptoes into the bedroom. Maya is on her side, face half buried in the pillow. Priya slips into bed behind her and tucks one arm across Maya’s waist, the way they used to curl together if they went to parties with their parents and had to nap in an unfamiliar bed when they were very young.

Now, they don’t have their parents. They just have each other.


	3. chapter two: it’s difficult to say, and easier to show

**Now (February 2011): Moving (II)**

February fourteenth sneaks up on Maya a little too fast, and before she knows it she’s getting out of the car outside Celestino, one of Pasadena’s best Italian restaurants. She’s got butterflies in her stomach, and not in the farfalle pasta sense, either. Her one consolation is that Stuart looks almost as nervous as she feels.

“If you don’t want to be here, if you just want to get takeout and go home, I’ll understand,” she says softly as he comes around the car to join her on the pavement.

His hand shoots out and grips her wrist, as if she’d suggested she start sprinting down the block just to prevent him from being seen in public with a trans person. “Don’t you dare say that, Maya,” he says, the tiny nervous smile that’s usually lurking on his lips gone completely as he looks into her eyes. “We’re going in there, we’re having dinner like any other couple, and nobody, _nobody_ is going to ruin it for us.”

“If you’re sure...”

Stuart just sighs and tows her into the restaurant, announcing their presence to one of the staff and getting them whisked off to a quiet corner table. The place is all candlelight and shadows and for the first time in weeks Maya manages to not feel completely self-conscious about her appearance. She’s still got a fluttery tummy, though, and when it’s time to order she just asks for a salad. Stuart gives her a stern look, or as stern a look as he can manage.

“That better be your entrée. You should eat something proper. It’s an important night.”

As if on cue their waiter arrives, a single red rose in a bud vase in his hand. He sets the vase down in front of Maya and then produces a bottle of wine and two glasses as if from nowhere, pouring for them both. Stuart swirls his wine and sniffs it, and then sips. He nods at the waiter, who withdraws for the time being.

“Do you really know that much about wine?” Maya asks.

“Half the Design campus were budding amateur oenologists. That means we drank a lot and pretended we knew what we were drinking, even if it wasn’t exactly a well-known brand.”

“Did it help you with your art?”

“I thought it did. Until the next morning, anyway, when I had to clean off the paint.”

Maya smiles. “I didn’t know you painted as well as drawing!”

Stuart almost looks uncomfortable. “Yeah... it wasn’t my main focus, but I was okay at it.” And that’s more of an admission of competence than he usually makes. His fingers twitch around the stem of the wineglass as if he wants to down the whole drink in one go. Instead he just lifts it and tilts it toward Maya. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Maya echoes, clinking the edge of her glass against his. Her smile spreads wider as they drink, and when she puts her glass down Stuart reaches out to take her hand and intertwine their fingers. They stay that way, just kind of goofily grinning at each other, until Maya’s salad and Stuart’s bruschetta arrive. Then they have to let go, but Stuart feeds Maya a couple of bites of the warm bread and Maya reciprocates with a forkful of radicchio, and they can’t stop smiling. Stuart’s whole face lights up when he smiles now, even his eyes, which is vastly different to when Maya first met him years ago and his smile only turned up the corners of his mouth but didn’t make it to the rest of his features. If she’s responsible for it then she’s flattered.

There are people looking at them and whispering here too, but their smiles are all benign, rather than cruel. Maya’s surprised at how comfortable she feels. She’s worn one of her favorite outfits for the night; a black knee-length skirt and a light brown halter-neck top, and Stuart’s put aside his usual t-shirt for a button-down shirt in navy blue with black chinos. Some people are wearing dressier outfits, but she’s also seen at least one couple wearing jeans and t-shirts, so she doesn’t feel underdressed.

In fact, she feels comfortable enough to order spaghetti bolognaise for her main course, even though anything that potentially splatters is supposed to be verboten on a date. Stuart goes her one better and asks for the risotto with squid ink sauce. Maya wrinkles her nose at him.

“Ew.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

“Oh, I am _so_ not trying it.”

Stuart just keeps smiling, and when the risotto arrives, dark with inky sauce, Maya gives in to curiosity and lets Stuart spoon a little into her mouth. It’s not terrible. She wouldn’t eat a whole serving, but it’s not terrible.

“Crazy Californians,” she says.

“We didn’t come up with the idea. This is authentic Italian.”

“ _Pizza_ is authentic Italian. Squid sauce is just crazy.” She doesn’t say it too loudly though; the dish is one of the restaurant’s specialties.

“The pizza they have here might be authentic Italian, but that stuff you have with Sheldon is about as far from authentic as you can get.”

“How do you know so much about Italian food?” Maya thinks it’s an innocuous question, but Stuart’s face closes off and he shovels a forkful of risotto into his mouth in lieu of answering. Maya hasn’t had that much time to hone her feminine intuition, but she knows this sort of reaction: he’s thinking about an ex-girlfriend. It’s exactly the sort of avoidant behavior she’s seen from Leonard, and even from Howard, although given Howard’s mom’s fondness for cooking he’s almost always stuffing food in his face. How he stays whip-thin is a mystery to everyone who knows him.

She doesn’t push the question. Instead, while they’re waiting for their dessert (tiramisu to share – neither of them think they can manage individual servings after everything else they’ve eaten), she gets out the small gift-wrapped box that she’s put the apartment key in and sets it on the table between them. At the same time, Stuart retrieves a jewelry box from his pocket and nudges it toward her.

“You first,” Maya says.

“Ladies first,” Stuart counters.

Maya gives in and opens the box. Inside is a gold bracelet with a couple of charms hanging from it; one is a tiny computer, the other is the smallest twenty-sided die she’s ever seen. She can just make out the numbers if she squints.

“Stuart, it’s beautiful!”

He laughs nervously in response. “I’m glad you like it. I wasn’t sure what to get... I didn’t think you needed any more plushies from the store.”

“This is perfect.” Maya holds out her left arm across the table. “Put it on me?”

Stuart fumbles the clasp the first time, but manages it the second; Maya slips her other bangles off to let the new bracelet take pride of place, dropping them into her handbag. She can tell the bracelet’s real gold and wonders how Stuart afforded it, but prudently does not ask. She’s starting to wonder, though, whether her gift to him will be sufficient.

It turns out she shouldn’t have wondered. Stuart takes the key out of the box, pushes the button on the bottom of the TARDIS to make the blue light flash and the vworp-vworp sound go once, and then almost knocks the table over getting up to throw his arms around her.

“Thank you so much. I’ve never been given a key to someone’s place before.”

“I’ve never given one out,” Maya says, conveniently not mentioning that Howard has a spare key in case of emergencies. It’s not at all the same thing, even if Howard does have some sort of weird attraction to her that hasn’t quite gone away.

Their tiramisu arrives and they sit close together to share it. By now they’ve probably given half the restaurant diabetes by being so sickeningly sweet, but Maya gives exactly zero fucks about that minor detail. Nobody’s thrown any meatballs at them or hissed any rude names at her, and that’s all that matters.

“So,” Maya says when the dish is scraped clean and Stuart’s signaled the waiter for the check, “want to come and see if your new key works?”

Stuart’s cheeks color with his habitual blush and he nods, temporarily tongue-tied.

 

His tongue comes untied when they get back to the apartment, though. Before long they’re entangled on the couch and Stuart has his hand up under Maya’s halter top, touching her as gently as possible, mindful of the tenderness of her breasts. His tongue has slipped into her mouth and he’s kissing her much harder than he’s touching her. Maya kisses back with a will, happy to let him dictate how fast they move, dizzied by the slow stroking of his thumb over her nipple, which has peaked under his touch. His other hand is running through her hair, fluffing out the short curls that come down to the nape of her neck. She really needs to think about getting it trimmed and styled because it currently has a tendency to look like a bird’s nest in the mornings, but right now it’s the furthest thought from her mind. He’s half lying on top of her and she can feel the heat of his arousal through his pants and her skirt and she _wants_. Oh, how she wants. She doesn’t know how to articulate her desires, doesn’t even know exactly what to ask him for, but she lets her thighs part so that he can settle between them and rub against her just a little.

“Maya.” His breathing is uneven and his eyes won’t open all the way, he’s so lost in the moment. “You’re beautiful.”

Maya runs her fingers through his curly hair and Stuart nudges his head against her hand, eyes closing again. She kisses his cheeks and his mouth and then the side of his neck and he gasps and jerks against her. The hand under her top slides out, palm grazing over both breasts on the way, and his fingers find the knot at the back of her neck. He slips one finger under it and pauses, and Maya closes her mouth on his neck and sucks lightly. She doesn’t know whether he’ll get the message but he does, and the knot comes free with one careful pull. Maya wonders briefly what would have happened if it had come undone sooner, like at the restaurant if it was that loose, but then Stuart rakes the front of her top down and lowers his mouth to one hard nipple and she can’t think any more, only whimper and moan and cling to him. He’s just as gentle with his mouth as he was with his hand, but the way he works his tongue across her skin is a whole new experience.

“Oh God, Stuart...”

“Mmmm,” is all she gets by way of response, before he licks his way over to her other breast to repeat the treatment. Maya’s seeing stars by now, a thousand constellations dancing behind her closed eyelids, and she’s starting to feel like she could come from this alone if he keeps it up.

But then suddenly some kind of barrier between pleasure and pain breaks, and what was unbearably good is now just unbearable. She has to put her hand under his chin and tilt his head up to catch his attention, but the second his eyes meet hers they’re filled with an apology in the making. Maya stops him with a finger against his lips.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. I’m just kind of hypersensitive, I guess.”

“I wanted to make you feel good,” Stuart complains.

An imp of the perverse seizes Maya and she tugs lightly on his hair, making him move on top of her up to her level so he can kiss her. He’s still hard against her thigh, which is exactly what she’d hoped, as she says softly against his mouth, “You can make me feel good by letting me make you come.”

His entire body shudders and then he’s kissing her harder than ever, even nipping her lower lip once, while she gets one hand down between their bodies and palms his cock through the front of his pants. He gasps into her mouth when she does it and she doesn’t even have the chance to undo his top button before she feels the pulse as he comes, gasping and blushing, right there in his pants.

And then he _apologizes_.

“Sorry, I – that’s not normally how that works.” It takes him a minute to formulate the sentence properly, partly out of embarrassment and partly because he looks like, well, like he just came quite hard. “I’m not usually so... fast. I... it’s been a while.”

“I probably have a change of pants I can lend you, if you don’t mind butterflies,” Maya says with as straight a face as possible, and it hits just the right note because Stuart starts laughing, shame fading rapidly.

“Do you mind if I, uh, shower here?”

“Of course not. My shower is your shower.”

Stuart looks relieved. “Great. Thanks. I’ve had trouble getting a decent shower for a while... my mom’s tried to talk me into moving back home but I manage okay.” He goes a bit pink again. “Oh. Sorry. I mean, you probably know more about worrying about parents than I do.”

“The existence of my parental issues doesn’t invalidate yours,” Maya says.

“They’re actually really nice about it. Like I said, Mom keeps telling me I should move back in, but I’d rather – I mean, I value my independence, and my bed fits in the storeroom, and—”

“Stuart?”

“Yes?”

Maya doesn’t say anything else, just hushes him with a kiss. “Go have your shower. I’ll find you some pants.”

He scrambles carefully off her and goes through the bedroom into the bathroom, leaving the door open a crack. Maya waits until the shower starts running and then goes into the bedroom to unearth a pair of boxers and her least feminine pair of jeans. And a good belt, because otherwise they’ll fall right off her skinny-ass boyfriend. She smiles to herself, but then realizes what she just thought and almost drops her armful of clothes.

Well. She did just make him come, and he did just _almost_ make her come – the thought makes her shivery with delight – and although that doesn’t necessarily qualify them for boyfriend and girlfriend status, it’s a step way beyond goodnight kisses and cuddles on the couch. Even if she hasn’t actually seen him naked yet, which is mostly because she’s afraid that when she finally sheds all her clothes for him he’ll turn and run. But their relationship can’t be one-sided forever, and if even Priya thinks it’s an inevitability that they’ll sleep together then maybe it is.

Maya shakes her head a little and gets a clean towel out of the closet, and then knocks lightly on the open door. There’s a hesitation before Stuart says, “Come in,” and Maya pushes the door all the way open to be greeted by a cloud of steam and the smell of the green apple shampoo she’s currently trying out. Stuart has his back to the door, lathering his arms with soap; his clothes are in a pile on the floor. Maya puts down the clean clothes and towel on top of the closed toilet lid and pulls Stuart’s stained pants and boxers out of the pile before he can turn around and object. He really made a mess of them. _They_ really made a mess of them, really. She can still feel the hot length of him against her palm through the soft fabric of his pants and she realizes that if she keeps thinking that way, she’s going to come.

“Are you okay?” Stuart asks. She’s been standing there staring at the wall (okay, and sidelong at Stuart) for a couple of minutes now.

“I’m fine. I was thinking, maybe you should stay here tonight. Get a good night’s sleep in a proper bed.” The words are out before she can halt them on her tongue; too bad. She turns her head to see Stuart watching her over his shoulder, hands paused in the action of rinsing the shampoo out of his hair.

“I’d like that.” He sounds almost like his own reaction has surprised him. “Yeah, why not?”

And there really is no reason why not.

“I’ll get you some pajamas then!” Maya whisks Stuart’s other clothes away, effectively trapping him in the bathroom (she hopes) until she comes back. She tosses the messy stuff in the hamper with her own dirty clothes. Then she’s sprawled on the bed, yanking off her skirt and panties, and reaching down to touch herself. She’s learned a few tricks to get herself off without actually stroking her shaft as such, and she doesn’t really ejaculate as much anymore, but she still feels the hot feeling of orgasm rip through her within seconds, and bites down hard on her lip to muffle any noises she might make. Then she rolls over to sit upright, wipes herself down with a tissue, and pulls her pajamas on. They’re not all that different to her old full-length pajamas except that they’re a deep burgundy satin. Priya bought them for her for Christmas, which almost went unnoticed amongst the disowning debacle and the subsequent fallout.

“Maya? Pajamas?”

“Just a sec!”

She grabs one of her old pairs out (she really needs to do a proper cleanout of all her old clothes, but right now it’s not such a bad thing that she’s disorganized) and drops the tissue in the bathroom trash when she goes in. Stuart’s out of the shower, wrapped in the towel, and she can’t resist leaning in and licking the side of his neck. A shiver runs through his body when she does it. Good to know; if she ever needs him wound up quickly, the neck is the place to go for. She does it again and his hips sway forward, pressing against the side of her thigh. It’s as though a dam has burst; she wants to lick him all over now, maybe see if she still remembers how to give good head. (A part of her history she hasn’t told anyone. Yet. She might have to tell him, though. It could be relevant, and sooner than she expected.)

“Maya, if you keep doing that, I’m going to need another shower.”

She gives him as coy a look as she can manage. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

“Only because I’m—” he punctuates the sentence with a yawn “—pretty tired. It’s been a long day.” She can tell that he doesn’t just mean in the sense of time passing. It’s been an _eventful_ day.

“Oh, all right.” She puts his pajamas down on the vanity. “Rain check?”

The confidence behind the smile he gives her makes her feel warm inside in a completely different way. “Absolutely.”

She leaves him to get dressed and goes to turn the sheets down on the bed. He joins her a few minutes later, hair still a little damp. “You don’t have a spare toothbrush, do you?”

“Um, no. Sorry.”

He shrugs, her pajama top shifting quite a bit on his slighter frame as he does so. He’s cuffed the bottom of the pants so they don’t hang over his feet. “As long as you don’t mind risotto breath...”

“You taste more like tiramisu, actually,” Maya says, and they share a laugh. She goes and brushes her own teeth, and then on a whim checks the drawers. There _is_ a spare toothbrush in there, tucked away behind some wrapped bars of soap and a box of condoms that expired six months ago. The condoms go into the trash; she puts the toothbrush on the vanity and calls Stuart in. He looks profoundly relieved, which is fair enough; nobody should have to suffer furry teeth, especially not on Valentine’s Day.

The feeling of his arms around her when they finally snuggle into bed together is the best present of all. She may be physically bigger than him, the difference more marked as he’s swamped in her clothes, but she feels protected and safe and happy in his arms.

“I’m so lucky to have you,” she murmurs.

His arms tighten around her. “I couldn’t ask for a better girlfriend.”

She’s about to be self-deprecating when his words sink in, and instead of saying anything she finds his mouth with hers, kissing him heatedly. He evidently understands why, because as soon as she pulls back to breathe properly he adds, “Prettiest girlfriend in the entire world,” and she can _hear_ the smile in his voice.

“Oh, Stuart...”

“Well, you are.” He says it as though he’s expecting her to dissent, which she’s considering (she really needs to work on that whole self-esteem thing; getting some would be a good start).

“And you’re the sweetest boyfriend in the world.”

“I’ve missed being someone’s boyfriend.”

“Me too. I mean, someone’s partner at all.” Maya pauses, then decides _what the hell_ and goes for it. “I mean, I’ve sort of been someone’s boyfriend before...”

“Of course you have, it’s okay. Nobody comes to a relationship with a clean slate. I wasn’t expecting you to have been saving yourself for m- for marriage.” Maya thinks he might have been about to say _me_ and can’t help grinning.

“No. I mean, I’ve been a boy’s boyfriend.”

Stuart doesn’t say anything for a second. Then: “Here, or in India?”

“In India, when I was still a teenager, for about a year and a half, I was seeing a guy – two guys, actually, they’re still a couple – as, I don’t know, kind of their friend with benefits.” Now that she _is_ saying it it’s terribly hard to make the words come out right.

Stuart surprises her, though. “Is this that Tanvir and Haroon you said your mom used to compare Sheldon and Leonard to?”

“Yes! How did you know?”

“I didn’t. They’re just the only people from back there that you’ve mentioned except for your family and your _servants_.”

Maya sighs. “I know, I know, check my privilege. I didn’t choose to have servants.”

“But you did choose to date two guys?”

“It wasn’t really dating. Mostly just fooling around. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“No, it’s fine.” Stuart snuggles closer to her. “It’s... actually, it’s nice to know that my girlfriend has a thorough knowledge of how to please a man.”

“Stuart!” Maya pokes him in the ribs and Stuart starts giggling, unable to keep up his façade of seriousness. “You’re terrible.”

Tension thus diffused, they spend a long while kissing, until both of them just taste of each other instead of toothpaste or tiramisu or anything else. Maya’s starting to overheat in more than one sense but she’s not planning to stop any time soon. Stuart’s hands are a little more daring under the covers, stroking the curve of her ass and seeking out her breasts again until she’s dizzy once more with pure arousal.

“I wish we could do this all the time,” she says softly.

“I’d invite you back to my place more often, but...”

Maya decides to go for the all or nothing question. “You could make this your place, if you want...”

There’s another long silence from Stuart, which is broken at last with a low sob, and then he’s just clinging to her, hands no longer wandering but clutched tightly together behind her back, his forehead pressing against her shoulder. She feels now like the protector rather than the protected, but then isn’t that the point of relationships, to care for each other as well as about each other? So she holds him while his shoulders shake, and feels a few tears dampen her pajama top, and doesn’t give a damn.

“Really?” he asks at last.

“Unless you think it’s moving too fast. But we’re not exactly the poster children for a normal relationship.”

“Then it’s lucky that nobody else we know is normal either, isn’t it?” Stuart pulls away for a second; Maya hears the soft rip of a tissue pulled from the box and smiles just at the thought that he already knows her bedroom well enough to find the tissues in the dark.

He settles back in and they lie forehead to forehead for another long silence. This time he breaks it with, “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”

So. It’s settled, then.

 

Stuart hasn’t got a lot to move – unlike Priya, he’s not stashing a bunch of stuff in storage, having sold his couch and some other furniture to try to make ends meet – but they drive to Burbank IKEA and get him a desk (which gets set up facing Maya’s so they can talk but still have privacy), and his own set of bookshelves to house his comics and DVDs, quite a few of which are duplicates of some Maya already owns.

“We can always ditch the doubles when we get married,” Maya says flippantly, and Stuart laughs rather than turning tail and fleeing, and Maya gets another splash of happy warmth in her stomach. It’s an insane thing to say when they haven’t even been together for a full month, but it’s funny, and that’s the main thing.

What to do with his bed is another matter. In the end they stash the air mattress in the storage space at Maya’s – their – apartment, just in case of visitors. Maya thanks several gods that Priya has her own place and won’t be staying over again; the mattress doesn’t look comfortable enough for her fussy temperament.

As for telling people, they mutually decide to wait and see how well it works out. Maya’s adamant that everything will be all right, but she’s circumspect about mentioning her confidence to Stuart, still a little afraid deep down that she’s going to scare him off. She still doesn’t know how long he’s been attracted to her, they haven’t exchanged the L word, and the whole thing might go wrong if they can’t actually stand each other on a daily basis.

But the first week passes smoothly. They have to get up at about the same time in the morning for their respective jobs and it turns out that Stuart can make amazing pancakes. Maya, in turn, makes him bag lunches to make sure he has something to eat if the store gets too busy (which it often does at lunchtime, when various geeks come in wearing their business wear or neat shirts and pants – or, naturally, in sweatpants because some people just do not change what they wear for something as mundane as a job). They trade off who makes dinner and in trying to impress each other end up thoroughly stuffed after every meal. Maya’s just enough of a scientist to not assume that one week of everything going smoothly is indicative of fifty years of bliss ahead of them – it’s not a sound hypothesis when not all of the variables have been tested yet, like the Meet Stuart’s Parents variable, or the Couples Costumes at Comic-Con variable. But she’s enough of a human being to hold out a whole lot of hope.

 

**Then (December 2010): Observing**

Stuart is quiet, but that doesn’t mean he’s not paying attention. He’s got a lot of data filed away on his regular customers in his head, and so when Raj starts coming into the store with eyeshadow on, he notices. It’s weird enough that he raises an eyebrow to himself, but he doesn’t comment.

He doesn’t comment either when Raj signs up for the Warlords tournament and Stuart notices that Raj’s fingernails are painted cotton-candy pink. He also notices the way that Raj is letting his hair grow out, how it’s starting to slowly curl into soft waves that will eventually frame his face in glorious glossy blackness if he lets it continue to grow.

Stuart’s fingers itch for a pencil, but the only thing handy is the pen Raj is using to sign up for Warlords with, and he can’t very well snatch it away and then proceed to draw Raj’s portrait. He settles for covertly staring at Raj the whole time he’s in the store, committing as much as he can to memory.

When he finishes work that night, Stuart takes his memory snapshots, assembles them on the drawing board in his mind, and sits at the counter for two hours straight, hunched over the sketchpad, working by the light of the gooseneck lamp he keeps handy for times like this (which are few and far between; he’s usually too exhausted to think of art). Sketching, outlining, erasing, and occasionally swearing, he eventually has a drawing he’s happy with; Raj in three-quarter profile, a gentle smile just turning the corners of his lips up but reaching to his eyes as well, making them sparkle even in graphite. The only trouble is that now it’s finished he doesn’t know what to do with it. He can’t give it to Raj, because that would be kind of creepy (or so he thinks); he can’t throw it away because it’s more real than anything else he’s ever drawn, even considering that he’s done pieces that took days or weeks to finish in college.

Finally he goes into the storage room and slips the picture into one of his old portfolios; at least it won’t get damaged there. Then, feeling as though he’s somehow doing something wrong, he stretches out on the bed, opens his pants, and starts stroking himself. His other arm is flung across his eyes, the still frames turning to moving images in his mind’s eye, and he’s thinking of strong brown fingers with delicate pink nails. A rougher touch than his own, maybe, harder maybe, and if he spreads his fingers out a little further apart, and if he speeds up his pace a little... he’s not sure how he’s going to be able to look Raj in the eye the next time he comes into the store, especially if he’s got the same nail polish on, but somehow the thoughts unspooling in his mind, a compelling scene of the two of them back here squeezed together on the bed, Raj’s hand on him, is too powerful to stop.

He comes harder than he has in some time and has to lie there taking deep breaths for a couple of minutes before he can muster the energy required to clean himself up and crawl into bed. The last thought that comes to mind before sleep takes him is, _Maybe this is how it feels to not be depressed_.

He can’t remember how it was the other times when he wasn’t depressed, but the thought is a hopeful glimmer of light that stubbornly refuses to fade.


	4. chapter three: tried to cut loose the anchors dragging me around

**Now (February 2011): Planning**

Maya gets called to see President Siebert again early the week after making the complaint about the graffiti. Since the graffiti’s gone and she hasn’t seen any more yet she’s nervous, wondering whether someone’s made some sort of formal complaint about her. She has to pee before she goes into his office, and uses the women’s room with an air of defiance, although there’s nobody else in there. She checks her clothes for loose threads, finds none, and resolves not to fiddle with anything while she’s talking to him, even if he is firing her for being a disturbing freak or something.

He calls her in straight away and she sits down and folds her hands in her lap, and immediately unfolds them to start rubbing her thumb over the charms hanging from her bracelet.

“Doctor Koothrappali, you’re not in any trouble, let me assure you,” Siebert says, catching the action and recognizing it for a nervous tic. “I just wanted to know if you’ve seen any more graffiti or had anything else happen since you came to me last week.”

“Nothing that I’ve seen, sir.”

“Good. I’ll be installing the camera within the next week.” He leans forward, looking earnest. “Maya, I promise you, if we find out who’s doing this, they will be fired. Or expelled, whichever’s relevant.”

“You think it could be a student?”

“It could be anyone.” He shakes his head. “I wish I knew. I truly do.”

Maya believes him. She’s had enough interactions with insincere people to know when someone’s lying to her. Plus, she remembers, his daughter’s a lesbian; that probably has a lot to do with his sympathy. She still can’t help being surprised that a cisgendered middle-aged white man’s being so supportive, but then again her boyfriend’s a cisgendered white man (not quite middle-aged, though) and he’s plenty supportive. Not to mention Sheldon and Leonard and Howard... maybe she’s selling cisgendered white guys short.

But probably not. The sample size is too small to tell.

Siebert lets her go after ascertaining that everything’s going well with her work, and Maya returns to the office she shares with Sheldon, relieved. She doesn’t have the huge desk any more, having changed it for a smaller, more sensible one, but the room is still cluttered with whiteboards. Maya’s put a poster up of the solar system – with STILL A PLANET printed under Pluto courtesy of Sheldon – and another of a rainbow in a fairly clear blue sky over a lake that doubles the rainbow, making it almost circular.

Sheldon’s standing at one of his whiteboards, marker hanging out of his mouth like a forgotten cigar, staring intently at an equation.

“What did President Siebert want?” He brushes Maya’s shoulder lightly with his hand as she walks past to her desk – the Sheldon Cooper variation of a supportive hug.

“He just wanted to make sure that there hadn’t been any more bullying incidents.” Maya switches her computer on. “Which there hasn’t. Not at work, anyway.”

Sheldon is being strangely perceptive today, and asks, “Does that mean something’s happened outside work?”

“Nothing specific. Just... I feel like people are always staring at me. That’s all.” She doesn’t mention that her two older brothers have both emailed her, apparently without consulting each other, to ask her to “give up this nonsense” and “come home so we can talk to you”. She’s been considering flying back to India to pick up whatever’s left of her things at home, that is if her parents haven’t set fire to everything in shame, but now she’s not so sure if it’s a good idea. Besides, it’d cost her a lot, and she’s trying to save as much as she can to pay her own way toward her gender confirmation surgery.

Sheldon pats her shoulder again. “There, there.”

Maya has to laugh. “It’s okay, Sheldon. It could be a lot worse.”

 

She gets home that night to some more worse in her email inbox. Tariq is now threatening to come to America to bring her and Priya both home for a family reunion. It’s not a concept that should be so terrifying, and yet it is. Family reunions are supposed to be fun with a little bickering; she suspects this one would be an all-out assault on her and her sister, and no fun at all.

Priya’s phone goes to voicemail when she tries to call her. She leaves a message simply asking Priya to call her back, and hesitantly adds, “Tariq emailed me,” just in case Priya’s been receiving emails as well.

Stuart gets home a little later; Maya’s already making nachos in the oven, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor and watching through the glass as the cheese slowly turns melted and brown. She is trying not to cry, and succeeding – up to a point. But then Stuart sits down beside her and puts his arm around her, and she feels the burning at the back of her eyes that signals impending tears, and she just can’t hold them back.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” It’s an order, not a question, and the words come spilling out: how she’s afraid that whoever’s at work will escalate what they’re doing from simple words scrawled on walls to something more personally confrontational; how her brothers are pestering her to give herself up and go back to India, presumably to be brainwashed back into what, to them, is “normal”; and how she’s sick of looking like she has chicken pox every time she has a session of electrolysis. Stuart listens and nods and makes calming sounds in all the right places, and takes the nachos out of the oven once the cheese starts bubbling. They sit on the floor with the tray between them, neither of them very hungry, picking at the nachos.

Stuart gets up after ten minutes of this and dumps the tray unceremoniously onto the sink drainer. “One of the best things for feeling like shit is a nice warm shower,” he announces.

“I can’t be bothered.”

“Oh, yes you can. Come on.” And he grabs her hands and pulls her to her feet, pulling her relentlessly toward the bathroom. Maya goes along if only because she’s feeling too depressed to argue with him.

Once they get into the bathroom he undresses her, following the removal of each piece of clothing with a kiss and a series of shivery little touches. He kneels to pull her shoes off and then runs his hand up her thigh to roll down her stay-up stockings. Maya can feel her breathing slowing down, arousal filling her like warm sweet honey. He pushes her skirt up to kiss the inside of each thigh and she freezes, and Stuart immediately backs off, standing up to pull her into a silent embrace, stroking her back in gentle circles. Maya lifts one hand and pushes his shirt off his shoulders and Stuart shrugs out of it, letting the blue plaid fabric fall to the floor. His zombie Schrödinger’s cat t-shirt follows it, and he toes off his sneakers and socks; now they’re equal, topless and barefoot, and Maya delights in the feeling of his bare skin against hers.

Stuart’s nimble fingers find the tiny zip on her skirt and ease it open. He’s looking into her eyes, watching for any sign that she’s uncomfortable with this new step forward. Maya lets him do it, although she can feel herself going pink. She’s just glad she’s wearing nice underwear, although with Priya helping her shop, all of her underwear is nice underwear. But before that comes off, Stuart drags his own pants off so he’s standing there in his boxers, and pulls Maya back into his arms, pressing firmly and unafraid against her.

This is the point of no return.

Maya takes a deep breath and hooks her thumbs into Stuart’s boxers, pulling them slowly down and off, and then pushes her own underwear down, stepping out of them with her head down. It’s either look at herself, which she doesn’t want to do, or look at Stuart, and she’s afraid to do that too.

“Maya.”

“What?”

“It’s all right. I promise.” He sounds concerned; Maya looks up and sees the worry on his face. He reaches out and brushes a finger down the centre of her chest, between her breasts, dipping into her navel, and then down over her soft cock, which tries to respond despite the dual dampeners of Maya’s fretting and the estrogen in her system. “You really are beautiful, you know.”

She can feel the tears threatening to come again. “No, I _don’t_ know.”

“Well, you are.” He reaches past her and turns the shower on with one hand, the other resting on her shoulder. He doesn’t let his gaze drop from hers while he does it. “I might not be an expert at _having_ relationships, but I know what I want when I see it.”

“And you want me.” Her voice is a whisper’s murmur, a mere breath in the gathering steam.

“More than that. I want to make you happy.” He steps forward, nudging her toward the shower. “Shower first.”

Maya ponders all the implications of _shower first_ as she obediently steps under the spray and automatically adjusts the taps to cool the water down a little; Stuart seems to always have it just a hair off scalding hot. Stuart gets in with her and immediately reaches for the shampoo, squeezing out a palmful of green goop and beginning to massage it into her scalp. Maya closes her eyes, partly so the shampoo won’t get in and mostly out of bliss as his fingers carefully work the suds through her hair. She hasn’t had her hair cut in a while; she’s forgotten how good it feels to have someone else wash her hair.

Once he’s done she returns the favor, Stuart practically purring as she not only lathers up his hair, but runs her slick hands over his chest and stomach, pulling him back against her so she can kiss the side of his neck, avoiding the bubbles.

“Mmmm... thought _I_ was meant to be making _you_ feel good.”

“You think this doesn’t feel good?” For God’s sake, her naked soapy boyfriend is practically melting in her arms, how much better could this get? At least a little better, it seems, as he turns in her embrace and kisses her, the shower beating down on them both and sending shampoo suds trickling down their faces. Maya can feel him getting hard against her thigh and deliberately rubs against him, and gets a sound like a squeak out of his throat.

The shampoo’s basically all gone but he rinses her hair anyway for the sake of getting to play with it, Maya’s pretty sure, and she flicks the shower head to spray him in the face, making him splutter, when he catches one finger on a knot. Then she trains the spray on his head and runs her own fingers through his short wet curls; the weight of the water has pulled his hair almost straight, but not quite.

Next comes the conditioner, and again they take turns basically giving each other a head massage. But then Stuart picks up the soap and works up a lather before beginning to stroke Maya’s arms and shoulders and breasts; it’s not really about getting clean but more about touching her everywhere. His hands are so soapy that they glide across her skin and it feels absolutely delicious. He starts working his way down her body but stops at her waist, only to kneel and start working his way back up from her feet, hands sliding up her calves, over her knees, and up the backs of her thighs. Maya is very glad that a) she has a big shower and b) it has a nice supportive wall for her to lean against, instead of being just a glass cube. Especially when Stuart leans in and not only kisses her inner thigh, but takes her skin between his teeth and nips lightly. She nearly loses her footing at that and he presses his palms against the fronts of her thighs to hold her steady while he sucks hard. He finally stops and looks up at her, eyes dancing with a wickedness she’s never seen before, and there’s definitely going to be a mark there for a while.

“It’s lucky I don’t wear short skirts,” she halfheartedly scolds him.

“It’s a _shame_. You have great legs.” He stands up and kisses her. Then he picks the soap back up and washes himself fast. “We should probably take this to the bedroom.”

“Why not,” Maya says as casually as she can considering that her mouth’s just gone dry with anticipation and nerves.

They only manage to get mostly dry before Stuart’s mouth claims hers and they’re both moving to the bed, stretching out on top of the covers. Maya props herself up on one elbow and openly examines Stuart’s body; he has a light dusting of body hair with a darker happy trail that leads down to the neat triangle of hair at his groin. His cock is still hard even though she’s staring and he’s supposed to be the shy one; if anything he seems to be rather pleased that she’s so brazenly appraising his body. She reaches out to touch him, plucking at one taut brown nipple, running her finger down that line of hair that says _come this way_ , tracing the delicate lines of his collarbone and hipbone. His breathing is slow but only because he’s trying to control it; she can tell by the way it quickens each time her touch finds a sensitive spot. His cock twitches a little, too; it should look profoundly silly, God knows she’s always thought cocks look silly, even when she was on her belly between Haroon or Tanvir’s legs sucking them off, but it doesn’t. Clearly she’s dazed by love – no, desire – no, maybe love.

Is four weeks into a relationship too soon to know if you’re in love?

She distracts herself from that dangerous train of thought by carefully wrapping her fingers around his cock; she thought she was being gentle but he gasps so loudly she thinks she’s hurt him, and she moves to take her hand away. His hand is atop hers fast as a striking snake, squeezing a little, and when he says, “Please don’t stop,” his voice is slow and drugged with wanting.

“Tell me what feels good.”

He forces his eyes open and smiles a lazy smile at her. “Everything.” Then he seems to remember that he’s supposed to be touching her as well and reaches out with his free hand, then takes his other hand off hers so he can touch both her breasts at the same time, cupping them and stroking his palms over her nipples in a way that makes her arch her back in appreciation.

“So, that’s good... Can I... do you want me to...” He trails one hand down along her body, and Maya catches it before it can go all the way.

“Don’t, um. Don’t hold me, you know? Just touch... oh, there.” His thumb moves over just the head of her cock, the part that if she’d been made right would have been her clit. “Yes.”

“Anywhere else?”

She has to pause and mentally recite the names of the nearest stars to the solar system before she can reply. “Yes. Here.” She stretches one finger along his and shows him where to press in; the dictionary calls them “inguinal canals” but Maya just thinks of them as “happy hot spots”, because they’ve got a whole bunch of nerves running through them. Stuart looks a little surprised but isn’t hesitant, and settles in to finger her there, concentrating hard to find which touches work best. Pleased with their progress, Maya starts moving her hand on him; Stuart looks down and a little choked gasp escapes him, and Maya realizes a second too late that she’s escalated things too fast. Then he’s coming in a few hot pulses all over her hand and stomach, looking mortified around the pleasure.

“I’m—”

Maya whips her free hand up and over his mouth. “Don’t you dare apologize.” He gives her one of those puppy-dog looks over her hand and she takes her hand away and kisses him instead. “There’ll be a next time.”

“God, I hope so!” Stuart says fervently, and Maya has to laugh.

They clean up, get dressed for bed, and hurry to snuggle under the covers. Maya’s hair’s still wet enough to be a little annoying, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care that she didn’t come, either; they’ll get to that all in good time.

“I’ll make it better next time,” Stuart whispers. “I mean it.”

“I hope you’re not just doing this because you feel sorry for me,” Maya says, unable to keep from being self-deprecating.

“Maya!” Stuart sounds genuinely shocked. “How can you say that?”

Maya shrugs. “I’ve had practice?”

“I wish you wouldn’t. I... I just wish you wouldn’t.”

What he doesn’t say tells her more than what he does. She gets a lump in her throat and can’t think of what to say in response. She still doesn’t want to drop the L word; it must be too soon. Surely it’s too soon.

“All right. I’ll try to stop.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ll just have to distract me by letting me do things to your gorgeous naked body,” Maya teases, and she swears she can see Stuart’s cheeks go red even in the almost total darkness of the bedroom.

“You really think that?”

“That I should get distracted by you, or that you’re gorgeous?”

“Either. Both. I don’t know.”

“Yes, anyway. To both.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been with anyone who’s said anything so nice about me before.” Now he sounds like _he’s_ got a lump in his throat.

“Me either. Oh, except that Haroon and Tanvir used to call me their pretty pink princess.”

Stuart’s shoulders start shaking, and Maya thinks for a second that he _is_ crying, but then the sounds that start escaping him are definitely laughter.

“That’s almost as good as Twilight Sparkle.”

“Shut up, Fluttershy!”

(The two of them took an online quiz after Maya got thoroughly addicted to _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ , thanks to her friend Sarah, who inducted her into the ways of the pegasisters. Neither of them were entirely surprised by the results, although Stuart had commented that he’d always thought of Maya as more the Rarity type.)

“Pretty pink princess. You know, I have a confession... there’s a reason I, um, I—”

“Went off on a hair-trigger again?”

“Not the words I would have preferred, but yes.” He’s doing the whole blushing in the dark thing again. “I sort of fantasized about you doing that to me,” he bursts out.

“What, just... getting you off?”

“Um. Yeah. It was your nail polish.” His words are coming out in little rushes, almost babble. “I don’t know if you remember, but you were wearing the same pink when you signed up for Warlords. I really liked the way it looked.”

“You’ve been fantasizing about me since _December_?”

“I’m sorry,” Stuart says automatically before Maya can stop him.

“Don’t be sorry, I’m flattered!” Maya thinks back to how much worse (she thinks) she looked in December. “But I wasn’t really out then.”

“It didn’t matter to me. It still doesn’t.”

“Huh.” Maya thinks about this for a minute. “So are you bisexual or something?”

“I’m almost definitely ‘or something’. I thought I was straight, but then I saw your nails and my mind started wandering, and now it turns out you’re a woman anyway, so that still makes me straight, except I guess some people wouldn’t think so, and... I don’t know. I was starting to think I was asexual for a while, but my therapist said it was just the depression talking.”

“I don’t know about the rest of it, but I think I can vouch for the fact that you’re _not_ asexual,” Maya says, and Stuart laughs. It occurs to Maya that Stuart’s laughter with her is real and uncomplicated, not like the fake laughter he sometimes uses around other people. (Which is, at least, still more realistic than the weird chuffing noise Sheldon makes.) “I don’t care, whatever, as long as we’re together.”

“Well, we are. For as long as you’ll put up with me.”

“Now come on, if I can’t be self-deprecating you don’t get to either.”

“But it’s the one thing I’m good at,” Stuart says wryly.

“I can promise you, it’s not.” Maya kisses him again to remind him that kissing is another thing he’s good at.

Her cell phone rings out in the living room and she reluctantly drags herself out of bed to answer it. It’s Priya returning her call and she sounds like she’s had a long day.

“Hi, Maya. What did Tariq want?” she asks in her usual forthright way.

“He thinks we need to go home and get brainwashed.”

“Oh my God! I got the same stupid email. Or something like it, anyway. What are you going to do?”

“Ignore him, what else?”

“Well...” She sounds like she doesn’t want to end her sentence.

“What?”

“I thought maybe we could go and get anything we’ve left in the house and bring it back here.” Now she sounds like she’s embarrassed – maybe of being sentimental. Maya knows she has a lot of knick-knacks that she probably wants, little trinkets from ex-boyfriends and that sort of thing. Memorabilia of a life left behind but not forgotten.

“Have you seen how much flights to India cost? I can’t afford it, Pri.” Maya wanders back into the bedroom so Stuart can hear what’s going on.

“I can. For both of us. I don’t want to go alone, and I don’t want to have to go through your stuff for you. We’ll stay in a hotel. It’ll be fine.” Priya’s obviously made up her mind and, with free flights on offer, Maya doesn’t feel like she’s got a lot of choice.

“When?”

“That’s the only problem. I can’t get time off work until early April. But I think that gives us time to get organized, decide what we’re going to say to Mummy and Daddy if we see them, and all of that.”

“What do you mean, ‘if’ we see them?”

“Well, I still have house keys. I thought we could go during the day when Daddy’s at work and Mummy might be out with her friends. Nanda might be home but I don’t think anyone else will be.”

“You’ve really plotted this out, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I thought it’s the best way for both of us to make a clean break, to know that there’s nothing of ours back there to be destroyed. I wouldn’t put it past Daddy to learn how to make voodoo dolls.”

“Voodoo’s pushing it a little, but okay. Let me know what dates in April you can get and I’ll put in a leave notification at work. Siebert’ll probably be thrilled to know I’m taking such a big step.”

“You’re going to India?” Stuart asks, and Maya nods and holds a finger to her lips, but it’s too late; she can practically hear Priya’s ears pricking up through the phone.

“Is that Stuart? He’s there a bit late, isn’t he?”

“Not considering he lives with me, no,” Maya says, too proud to be reluctant. “He can be here as late or as early as he wants.”

“When did this happen? How come you didn’t tell me? No, never mind. You can explain tomorrow. Let’s meet for breakfast – both of you come – and we can look at flights and talk about it.”

They settle on a time and place and Priya finally hangs up, although Maya can tell from her tone of voice that she’d rather stay on the line to grill Maya about Stuart. Stuart, for his part, looks mildly terrified at the prospect of meeting Priya again in the context of being Maya’s boyfriend.

“Everything will be fine,” Maya assures him.

“I’m just glad I’m not meeting your parents.”

“Believe me, that _won’t_ be an issue.”

 

Leonard’s there as well at breakfast the next morning, with Sheldon a fifth wheel who doesn’t seem too unhappy because he’s got waffles with real maple syrup.

“Sorry. I have to take him to work after this,” Leonard explains.

“I didn’t know you were bringing Leonard,” Maya says past him to Priya.

“Oh, I thought since you were bringing your boyfriend it’d be okay for me to bring mine.” Priya’s voice is as sweet as the syrup on Sheldon’s waffles.

“Oh my God, you two made it official and didn’t tell us?” Leonard’s voice cracks a little with how emotional he is or something. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Maya says. Stuart just ducks his head and grins and goes back to peeling the paper off his apple-cinnamon muffin to eat it from the bottom up. Maya reaches over and breaks a piece off the top and stuffs it into her own mouth. Stuart retaliates by stealing a piece of bacon off her plate and eating it. Leonard looks at Priya and rolls his eyes.

“Young love.”

“Shut up, Leonard. It’s not like you two aren’t just as bad.”

“I don’t know, you don’t see me stealing Priya’s food.”

“That’s because she deliberately gets dairy products so you _can’t_.”

Leonard looks wounded. “Is that true?”

“No, it’s not true!” Priya smacks Maya’s hand and takes a bite of her eggs Benedict, which definitely have milk in them, even if it’s probably powdered milk. “Why would I do something like that?”

“Relationships are inexplicable,” Sheldon says, and that’s the full extent of his contribution to the conversation as he goes back to eating his waffles.

“So, I looked at flights online.” Priya pulls out her iPad and brings up the relevant website. “We can go relatively cheaply if we leave on April fourth and come back on the seventh or eighth, depending on how long we need to pack things up.”

“I wish I could come with you,” Leonard says. “I sort of feel like I should be defending your honor.”

“No offence, Leonard, but we’d probably do more to screw with their honor than defend it. I know Maya’s parents aren’t happy about their kids dating outside their culture, and having us show up on their doorstep and rub it in their faces wouldn’t help.” Stuart shoves a piece of muffin into his mouth after this, as though embarrassed that he’s putting words into Maya and Priya’s mouths.

“He’s right,” Maya and Priya say in unison.

Leonard looks impressed that Stuart knows enough about Indian culture to know this. Maya idly wonders if he’s starting to see Stuart as a friend yet, or whether the divide hasn’t quite been crossed from Stuart as business owner. Of course they’ve all got each other added on Facebook, but Facebook relationships fluctuate in meaningfulness – she’s still down as “It’s Complicated”, when maybe she and Stuart should be thinking about listing each other as partners, apart from anything else.

She also wonders if Leonard’s learned anything much more about Indian culture that isn’t between the covers of the _Kama Sutra_.

“So I’ll talk to President Siebert today and get that week off.” Maya taps the back of Stuart’s knuckles with a fork as he reaches for more of her bacon. Priya side-eyes her and Maya defiantly cuts off a piece of bacon, a corner of toast, and a chunk of hash brown, and stuffs the lot into her mouth. Priya sighs and Maya rolls her eyes at her. “Go ahead and book the flights, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

They manage to finish breakfast without anyone stealing any more food or passing any comments on dietary restrictions – allergies, religious, or otherwise. Priya books the flights on the spot and then announces that she has to get to work. Maya checks her watch and realizes that they _all_ need to get to work.

 

She gets permission for leave from Siebert easily enough; he looks worried when she walks into his office and relieved when she’s not there to report another incident. They fill out the appropriate forms and he signs off on them straight away.

“Just be sure to look after yourself over there,” he says, sounding like a concerned father, and tears prick the back of Maya’s eyes. She’s awfully quick to cry these days.

She’s fine by the time she gets back to her and Sheldon’s office, though, and walks in saying, “Hey, I got the – what the hell happened here?”

Sheldon’s just standing in the middle of the room, which is devastated, as though a hurricane has ripped through it. All of the whiteboard equations have been scrawled over with meaningless scribbles in permanent marker. Their desk drawers have been pulled out, their contents poured into one pile on the floor. Sheldon’s chair is hanging out of the window. Maya’s chair is up on top of the filing cabinet, or at least the seat is; the wheeled base is nowhere to be seen. The only thing that’s untouched is their computers, except that when Maya switches hers tentatively on it drops straight into screensaver mode. A scrolling marquee in lurid pink and purple announces _TRANNY FAG_ , and whatever asshole left it there has left it password protected, so she can’t turn it off. They were at least smart enough to leave Sheldon’s computer alone.

Maya calls Howard – he’s pretty good at computer hacking – and while she’s waiting for him she starts picking up the mess off the floor and restocking the drawers. But before that she takes a series of photos on her phone and emails them to Siebert.

It’s hard to say who screeches through the door first: Howard or Siebert. Siebert’s the one who tells them not to touch anything and calls the police. Maya obediently stops sweeping up paper clips and rubber bands and goes to stand out in the corridor and wait for the cops. A few people wander past and rubberneck, but she can’t tell for certain if any of them are gawking with ulterior motives.

Kripke isn’t amongst them, but maybe he’s just smart enough to not return to the scene of the crime.

Leonard turns up before the police do, alerted by Sheldon, and pulls Maya into a hug that lasts a long time. She manages not to cry, but only just.

The police dust for fingerprints and find nothing; it’s a college full of people smart enough to wear gloves, and anyone could snag a pair or two from one of the many dispensers around the labs. They take their own photos, promise to stay in touch, and leave Maya, Sheldon, Howard, and Leonard to clean up the mess. President Siebert has to go to a meeting but says he’ll be launching an investigation.

The first thing Howard does is fix the screensaver back to Maya’s favorite flying through space. (Sometimes when she’s really mentally blocked she sits in front of the monitor and sways back and forth, pretending to dodge the oncoming stars.) The second thing he does is start an anti-virus and malware checker to make sure nothing’s been put on either her or Sheldon’s computers. The third thing he does is retrieve Maya’s chair from atop the filing cabinet and put it back together. Maya watches him do all of this from the corner of the room, where Leonard’s hugging her again. Sheldon is picking up odds and ends from the floor with a desultory expression on his face.

She’s texted Stuart to tell him what’s going on, with a strict admonition not to leave work. She’s not entirely surprised when he shows up half an hour later, out of breath.

“Come on, you. We’re going home.”

It’s a hell of a way for the other three to find out that she and Stuart are living together, but it’s a bright spot in an otherwise dark morning; even breakfast was overshadowed by the specter of her parents and what might happen in India.

 

**Then (March 1998): Coloring**

“ _Holi hai_ , Rajesh!”

Raj turns around to see who’s calling him and gets a faceful of pink powder that he can feel sticks instantly to his hair. He curses whatever instinct made him put product in his hair today of all days. It’s the Holi Festival, the Festival of Colors, and Tanvir has pink all over his hands from throwing it. Haroon, his constant companion, has pink in his hair too, and squirts Raj with scented water.

“Care to join us? We could use a pretty pink princess for company,” Haroon says, grinning.

“Princess _this_!” Raj has come prepared with a bucket full of water balloons; he hurls one at Haroon and it splatters green paint against the young man’s chest. Haroon yells in protest and squirts Raj again; Tanvir steps between them in an attempt to intervene and gets a water balloon to the side.

The Festival duly begun, the three of them run together to see who else they can cover in powder and paint, as the streets begin to echo with singing and laughter.

 

By the end of the day Raj’s head is spinning with the joy of running around all day and making people green, not to mention the effects of the _bhang ki thandai_ that Haroon and Tanvir acquire for him despite it being officially a dry day. In fact his head is spinning so much he falls over and Haroon catches him and he kind of blacks out for a little while.

Consciousness snaps back unpleasantly fast when he’s dumped in a bathtub – not his own – and the cold water goes on.

“—looks like a pride flag,” he hears Haroon say.

“Appropriate, considering where he is,” Tanvir says dryly.

“I’m _freezing_ ,” Raj complains. The colors on his clothes and in his hair are melting together into a glutinous mess that slowly trickles off him and down the plughole. Too slowly. Not really thinking about where he is or who he’s with he starts pulling his clothes off to better rinse them, and himself, clean.

Haroon steps into the tub with him and adjusts the water temperature. “Sorry. We had to make sure you were sober. We can’t let you go home wasted.” He starts helping Raj with his shirt, dragging the wet fabric up over his head. Raj notices the way his hands linger, trailing slowly over his skin, cutting lines through the smears of pink and purple and green.

“If we let you go home,” Tanvir says, taking Raj’s shirt and dumping it in a plastic basket on the floor. “Pants, please.”

“...what do you mean, ‘if’?” Raj pulls his pants and boxer shorts off and hands them over, despite being a little uncomfortable with how close they’re both standing to him.

“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re a gorgeous young man.”

“Tan, don’t scare him off,” Haroon says, handing Raj the soap and starting to take his own clothes off.

“Just giving him the facts.” Tanvir turns his attention back to Raj, who is not very successfully trying to clean his arms off. “You don’t have a girlfriend. We’ve been wondering about you.”

“I just can’t talk to girls, that’s all. I don’t know why.” Raj can’t look Tanvir in the eye. He can feel himself getting hard; he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s drunk or because Haroon’s taken the soap back and is rubbing it up his arm in lazy circles.

“If you’re interested in learning about other options...” Tanvir lets the sentence trail off as he gathers Haroon’s wet clothes and tosses them into the basket with Raj’s, then strips off his own clothes and adds them to the heap. Raj rather ridiculously hopes he’s got a good washing machine. “Move up, will you?”

Raj steps sideways to make room; Tanvir gets into the tub and it’s tight quarters but he makes it work a little better by dropping to his knees in front of Haroon and – oh.

_Oh_.

Raj has to lean against the wall for support just as much as Haroon does as Tanvir’s mouth works away. Haroon manages to drop a wink at Raj before his eyes roll back and he moans with pleasure. His hips move and Raj wonders what it feels like to have that mouth on him, around him, and a little whimper escapes his throat.

“You’re next if you want, princess,” Haroon says with a gasp, reaching down to thread his fingers through Tanvir’s hair.

“Don’t call me princess.” Raj knows it’s a futile protest. Haroon doesn’t answer him anyway because Tanvir’s doing something with his tongue that makes him writhe. Tanvir pins his thighs to the wall with his hands and continues the onslaught of lips and tongue, and Raj’s hand drops unconsciously to his cock.

“Krishna!” Haroon’s watching him. “Save that for – oh—” Apparently Tanvir doesn’t like Haroon being capable of thinking, because he redoubles his efforts. Haroon’s eyes close again and he’s reduced to a series of wordless noises.

Raj can tell the moment he comes because his entire body goes tense. It’s not weird or creepy at all. It’s interesting and kind of amazing.

“Your turn, princess,” Tanvir says from down on his knees, and Raj just has time to let Haroon slip a supportive arm around his shoulders before Tanvir’s mouth covers the head of his cock and starts sucking lightly. The sounds that Raj makes are indescribable. His mind is spinning still, more than ever now, and he comes hard, barely able to give any warning. Not that Tanvir seems to care; he swallows Raj whole and Raj digs crescents into his palms with his nails and cries out wordlessly.

 

The three of them lounge around in towels in the living area while their clothes get clean and then dry in the laundry room. They talk about inconsequential things: school (the other two are two years ahead of Raj); their families; the events of the day they just had, with a focus on things like shooting their teachers with pichkaris more than, well, shooting anything else anywhere. Raj senses they’re trying to make him feel at ease and it’s working.

Finally their clothes are dry and Raj gets dressed again, happy to be clean and dry and relatively sober. Both of them kiss him goodbye before he leaves the house, and Tanvir says, “So we’ll see you soon,” as though it’s a done deal.

It’s definitely the beginning of an intriguing, complicated time in Raj’s life.


	5. chapter four: come on girl we’re gonna hit the town

**Now (February 2011): Evolving**

Once Penny hears about Maya’s troubles at Caltech – not to mention the fact that Stuart has moved in with her and she hasn’t told anyone – she mobilizes fast, and Maya finds herself swept up in plans to go out that Friday night for drinks with the girls. Maya’s got an electrolysis appointment on Thursday after work but she’s delighted enough to be invited to hang out with the girls to not mind if she has spots on her face.

As it turns out, the woman who does her electrolysis – Jess – goes pretty easy on her, pointing out that she’s had enough sessions that her facial hair is almost all gone. Maya nervously looks in the mirror and realizes it’s true; she’s been avoiding her own reflection for so long that she hasn’t seen the transformation that’s taking place. Her hair’s longer than she thought and her face is almost clear of the little dark hairs that have frustrated her for so long.

“Here, can I try something?” Jess asks, reaching for a bag on her table. She pulls out a brand-new mascara wand and brushes Maya’s eyelashes lightly, and then goes to work with some forest green eyeshadow that has gold flecks in it. “I know this might be weird, but I’ve been wanting to try this stuff on you for like three weeks now, and since you’re going out tomorrow night, I figured tonight’s the night to see how well it works.” She takes out a pair of tweezers and does something sharply painful to Maya’s eyebrows for a couple of minutes.

When Jess holds the mirror up again Maya can’t catch her breath for a second, she’s so surprised at how pretty the woman looking back at her is. Jess has a proud smile on her face.

“Oh my God!”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Where did you get this?” Maya indicates the eyeshadow. “I have to get some.”

“Oh, you can have this one. I only used it once and it didn’t really suit me.” Jess is wearing shimmering purple eyeshadow and blue mascara that matches her short blue spiked hair; Maya’s pretty sure that the dark green eyeshadow, even with the golden flecks, is too dull for her. “I thought it’d go nicely with your skin tone.”

“Well – well, thanks! Thanks for thinking of me.”

“Hey, to be honest, you’re one of my favorite clients.” Jess smiles at her. “You don’t scream like some of the girls do.” She brushes a fingertip over Maya’s cheek. “To be honest, it’s too bad that you’re taken...”

Maya goes bright pink as she realizes that Jess is flirting with her. She has no idea what to say, and she ends up giggling. Jess laughs with her.

“Damn, girl, you’re gorgeous.” She leans in and pecks Maya on the lips. “If you ever decide to break up with that boy of yours, let me know, okay?”

“Are you going to electrocute my face if I don’t?” Maya asks.

“Hey, come on, I have ethics.” Jess kisses her again, though, and Maya feels a weird tingle run through her body. She kisses back for a second and then thinks of Stuart and pulls away.

“Ethics, huh?”

“ _Some_ ethics.” Jess grins, her teeth white in her dark-skinned face. “You come back in two weeks and we’ll get whatever’s left, but you actually have pretty fine hair compared to some women I’ve treated.” She tactfully doesn’t need to say “trans” before “women”; Maya got her details through the Caltech Center for Diversity, thanks to Leonard’s exhaustive research.

“It sure didn’t feel like it.”

“Yeah, well, nothing feels fine when you’re being electrocuted. Unless you’re into violet wands and TENS machines.”

“I’m not going to ask.”

“If you’re not going to ask, I’ll spare you the details,” Jess says, which only makes Maya genuinely curious. She packs the mascara wand and the new eyeshadow away into a plastic bag. “I meant to ask, what are you doing about your legs?”

“Oh. I shave them myself. I was waxing but my waxer moved to Canada and the new one...” She trails off.

“Don’t tell me you went to some dumbass bitch who got a look under your skirt and kicked you out.”

“I still had wax on my left knee. It took me all night to pick it off.”

“Oh, babes, that’s awful.” Jess pulls a small bunch of strands of Maya’s hair forward and deftly plaits them, securing the plait with a tiny gold ribbon. “I’m thinking of expanding the business here. You know it’s just me and Tanya, right?”

“Yeah. “

“Well, another friend of mine’s a waxer – her name’s Latisha, I don’t know if you know of her – and she doesn’t have an office at the moment. We have space for her here but we need to get the word out that she’s here so she can put in her share of the rent. I feel bad, but if she can’t contribute financially we won’t be able to carry her for more than a month.”

Maya gives her a tentatively sly smile. “If she’s half as charming as you, I’m sure she’ll have no problem finding clients.”

“Ha! Thanks. Will you let people know? She’s going to start next week. I’ll give you a ten percent discount and throw in some free aftercare stuff. She has this gorgeous witch-hazel lotion that smells amazing.”

“Sold!”

“Girl, we are gonna treat you like royalty. Don’t shave your legs for a week, okay? I know how it totally sucks but she needs you fuzzy for the wax to work properly.”

“I know.”

Jess hands the bag of makeup over. “Here. I’ll book you in for Latisha next week and me again the week after, okay?”

“Sure,” Maya agrees readily. Jess walks her out and makes notes for the next appointments on the computer while Maya gets out the cash. She’s still quite stunned at how different she looks to how she appears in her mind’s eye.

 

Stuart isn’t as shocked as Maya herself, but he’s definitely appreciative of Jess’s mini-makeover. He twirls the little plait around one finger and pulls Maya in for a kiss, ignoring the fact that they’re standing in the middle of his store and there are quite a few customers around. Maya feels the least self-conscious she’s ever felt in this sort of situation, and Stuart’s certainly gaining a good deal of confidence. They get side-eyed by a few people but it’s probably more because of the public display of affection than who they are. Or maybe because Stuart is being a little less than appropriate for the workplace.

“Don’t take this out until I get home,” he cautions her, and Maya nods, feeling the light tug of his fingers before he lets go. It sends a tingle down her spine like the one she felt when Jess laid those kisses on her, and makes her wonder if she should tell Stuart about it. Later, she decides. If it turns out to be a problem, she’d rather not have it be a problem at work.

She leaves before he does because she’s got housework to do, of all things. She’s gotten a lot more house-proud since Stuart moved in for some reason; she doesn’t know if it’s because she’s got a boyfriend, got more _things_ in her apartment that need dusting, or just because she’s really starting to notice the little things like vacuuming needing to be done earlier than usual. (Which means more than once a month.)

As far as maintaining privacy goes, she tries to avoid Stuart’s desk except for a little dusting, but his sketchpad is sitting right there, jar of pencils beside it, and she casually flips it open, intending to write him a little love-note for next time he sits down to draw.

What she sees halts her hand mid-air as she reaches for a pencil; then her fingers lift and press against her lips in disbelief.

He’s been drawing her.

The top sketch is a hasty head and shoulders scrawl, but even as quick as it must have been done (she’s depicted sitting at her computer, and she never sits still for long) Maya can see the talent in the lines. On the next page she’s got a microphone in her hand, apparently playing Singstar or something like that. The next one is just a head and shoulders sketch again where she’s surrounded by a night sky filled with pinprick stars and how he managed to draw that with just pencils she has no idea.

She turns over the page and freezes.

This page has full-body sketches. Naked ones. In the first it’s as she is now; the soft curves of her breasts delicately shaded in, the lines depicting her cock and balls less detailed. Beside it is a second picture where her male genitals are gone, replaced by subtle shadowing suggesting post-operative bruising and scarring. It’s realistic enough to make her wince.

In the third picture she is a whole woman, and he has captured everything she is and everything she wishes to be, from her shoulder-length hair to her breasts right down to the tiny detail of the dolphin tattoo she’s often mentioned getting on her ankle. She’s even wearing the charm bracelet from Valentine’s Day; this must be a recent work, although she hasn’t really noticed him working on it. He probably sneaks a few lines in every time she’s out of the room, and the thought makes her realizes that she’s snooping and really shouldn’t be looking at this at all, since he obviously wants to keep it private.

Naturally, that’s when his key rattles in the lock and she’s caught red-handed – or rather, graphite-handed – standing over his desk with the sketchpad still open in front of her.

“I was wondering when you’d end up peeking,” Stuart says, sounding resigned rather than angry.

“I didn’t mean to. It was out and I was cleaning and these are _incredible_ , Stuart. When did you have time to do them?”

He shrugs awkwardly and comes over to join her. “Some nights I have insomnia and the only thing that helps is drawing it out.” He gives her an awkward shy look that she hasn’t seen in ages. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t. At all,” Maya says firmly.

“I was thinking... maybe I could do progress drawings of you to go with your progress photos.”

“I didn’t know you knew about those!”

“I figured you had to be doing something with all those self shots you take in the mirror with your phone camera.”

“Oh, all right.” Maya relents and even goes around to her computer to show him. For a second she’s hesitant to log in to Fetlife, where she’s got her photo thread along with a few of the other girls, but then figures it can’t hurt – after all, it’s just Facebook with a kinky edge to it and it’s not like she’s been using it to hunt for partners. (Some people have sent her messages ranging from the bizarre to the sublime, but she’s politely turned them all down.)

Stuart sits down and starts scrolling through the thread, occasionally making comments like, “That’s the night of the Warlords tournament!” and “I haven’t seen that bra on you before,” and “I didn’t know you were into _that_ ,” when he clicks back to her profile before she can stop him. She’s not sure which of the things listed under “Fetishes” he’s commenting on and clicks the close window button before he can read the whole thing. (She suspects it’s the one that starts with “a” and she’s listed as “into receiving” – thanks, Haroon and Tanvir.)

“Are you mad at me for looking at your sketches?” she asks, although it’s probably not the safest change of subject.

“No. And I’m not mad at you for having photos of yourself up online, although I’m glad you’re sticking to keeping your clothes on.” He looks at her with an odd expression; it takes her a moment to recognize it as possessiveness. “You have a body to be proud of, but I like it better when I get to be the one who’s admiring it.”

Maya looks down at her hands. “It’s not all that good,” she mumbles.

“Maybe you missed the part where I’ve drawn you naked from memory because I like looking at you so much,” Stuart retorts, before standing up and kissing her. His fingers find the little plait again and tug on it lightly.

“Okay, fine. I have something I have to tell you though, and I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“Maya, stop acting like you _want_ me to break up with you and just say whatever’s on your mind, okay?”

“My electrolygist kind of kissed me tonight.”

Stuart’s hands go still on her arms. For a second – one long, interminable second – he looks wounded. Then it passes and he’s asking, “Did you kiss her back?”

“Only for a moment. She knows about you, she wasn’t really trying anything. I think she just really wanted me to know how pretty she thinks I am because I go in there and I don’t know, I try not to complain but I guess she knows I don’t like the way I look.”

She’s babbling. Stuart stops her with his mouth on hers, catches her plait again, and draws her into the bedroom, where he proceeds to thoroughly shut her up. Maya decides that if having a little plait in her hair as a convenient handle is going to get this sort of reaction out of him, she’s going to wear her hair this way more often.

 

The next day she gets home from work and goes straight into the bathroom to put her new makeup on, taking time to get it right. She’s struck by the way the mascara makes her irises look darker; Jess obviously has good taste in makeup. The eyeshadow is harder to apply and she has to fix more than one smear. She’s still ready to go in a green halter top and long brown skirt with strappy black sandals when Penny knocks on her door, though.

They catch a cab to the bar Penny’s picked out, collecting Priya on the way. Amy and Bernadette are waiting outside, Bernadette looking thrilled to be out and about with the girls, Amy looking half delighted and half nervous. That’s all right; Maya knows that alcohol can fix that sort of nerves, and Penny’s brought them to a bar known for its cocktails.

“Do you know every bar in Pasadena, Penny?” Bernadette asks as they walk in and one of the bartenders waves to Penny, and Penny just smiles and leads them to a miraculously vacant booth. Or maybe not so miraculously – it does happen to have a “Reserved” sign on it, although whether it’s reserved for them or not is another question.

“Hey, Garrett,” Penny says as the bartender himself brings over a trayful of drinks. They haven’t even looked at a menu yet, but apparently Penny has planned this evening thoroughly. “What have we here?”

“Sweets for the sweet, Pen. Are you ladies eating here tonight?”

“Oh, they _have_ to try the potato chips with the onion crème fraiche.” Penny sips her drink. “I taste Chambord... and is this peach? Peach schnapps? And... melon?”

“Midori, and did you get the grapefruit juice?”

“So that’s what that was! I wasn’t sure if it was that or Cointreau.”

“Actually, that’s triple sec. It’s called a Sex on the Pool Table.”

Penny nearly snorts her drink out of her nose. “Garrett, you are pure class.”

“That’s why you love me. I’ll tell the kitchen to run you out those chips.” He leaves the girls to it. Maya takes a sip of her drink and decides it’s not too bad, even if the combination of liqueurs makes it a funny color. Priya looks at hers dubiously and pours a glass of water.

“Priya, don’t you dare pull the no alcohol thing,” Maya warns her.

“Some of us do have to work weekends.”

“Yes, but you also have to try this, because it’s _amazing_ ,” Penny says.

Amy and Bernadette sip at their drinks and both make approving noises, and that prompts Priya to loosen up and taste hers. “All right, you were right.”

The chips arrive. The taste of the onion crème fraiche is very sour by contrast to the cocktail, but Maya rather likes it and dunks another chip, trying not to drip anything on the table. She’s just getting really relaxed when Penny leans over and says, “So Maya, when were you going to tell us that Stuart’s moved in with you?”

Maya sputters a little, but there’s nothing to be done now; all eyes are on her. “I was going to say something eventually. I was just waiting for the right time. I didn’t want you to think I was rushing things.”

“Considering the glacial pace of my relationship with Sheldon, I hardly think I’m in any position to pass comment on the speed of anyone else’s relationship,” Amy says, swirling her straw around in her drink.

“I don’t think you’re rushing things,” Penny says.

“I think it’s really sweet,” Bernadette chimes in.

Maya looks at Priya. “How about you, Pri? Care to weigh in?”

“I think I’m just glad I moved out when I did to give you the opportunity to take the step forward,” Priya says. “Okay, maybe it’s a little fast, but under the circumstances, it’s better than Stuart’s prior living arrangements.”

“His what now?” Penny has almost finished her drink already.

“He was living in the store,” Maya says. “He had an air mattress in the storage room. I didn’t want him to have to sleep there when I have a perfectly good bed.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Penny raises her glass. “To good beds! And Maya and Stuart!” The others clink their glasses against hers and each take a mouthful of the sweet cocktail.

 

Half an hour later they’re drinking a concoction called a Fuzzy Prick (more peach schnapps, this time with pineapple juice and crushed ice) and Maya’s wondering aloud whether every cocktail is obliged to have an at least vaguely sexual name.

“Course,” Penny says, “otherwise you wouldn’t be able to laugh about them. I mean, I did make one this one time called a Dead Baby, but we’d been telling dead baby jokes all night and it kind of looked like what would happen to a baby in a blender.”

“Ew, gross!” Bernadette looks ready to be sick.

“What was in it?” Priya asks, apparently just for the sake of keeping the conversation going while moving away from the actual dead baby part.

“Oh God, I can’t remember. It was whatever I grabbed off the table. Tia Maria, I think, and black Sambuca, and Midori, and there was this really nice apple and strawberry juice as well. I just picked up a few things that were handy and put ‘em in the shaker.”

“Did it _taste_ like dead baby?” Amy asks.

“God, I hope not! How would I know what dead baby tastes like? It tasted okay, actually, but maybe I just thought that because I was already drunk.”

“That does help,” Bernadette agrees, taking a big gulp of her Fuzzy Prick.

Maya’s poking at the crushed ice in her glass to try to get it to melt faster so she can finish her drink when Penny gives her a cautious look and asks, “So, um, Maya... what do you and Stuart get up to, you know, in bed?”

Oh. _The Question._ Every trans woman’s _favorite_ question, alongside, “So, do you still have a dick?” and “What’s it like having boobs and a dick?” and “Is ‘shemale’ _really_ offensive?”

Maya counts to five in her head, gives Penny a sweet smile, and says, “Oh, Penny, you’ve slept with plenty of men, I’m sure you know what they’re like.”

Bernadette nearly chokes on her drink and starts laughing. Amy looks like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or defend her bestie’s honor – which would be weird considering she’s had some choice things to say about Penny’s cheerfully busy sex life in the past – and Priya raises her glass in a silent salute to Maya.

“Okay, I had that coming. I’m sorry, that was totally inappropriate.” Penny signals the waitress, who comes over, order pad at the ready. She checks the woman’s nametag. “Ky, get Maya whatever she wants. My treat.”

“Toblerone,” Maya says immediately; she’s been eyeing it on the list all night and it looks deliciously decadent. “Heavy on the chocolate liqueur.”

“That sounds good, actually, make it two,” Penny says.

“Can I get a diet Coke?” Priya’s starting to look a little dizzy; she normally drinks wine.

“Another Fuzzy Prick,” Bernadette says grandly.

Amy just reaches for the water bottle and a clean glass.

“I’m sorry,” Penny says again once the waitress is gone. “I should have thought about that before I opened my mouth.”

“It’s okay. At least you apologized. Most people don’t bother.”

“Have people been grilling you about your sex life?”

“I meant in general. It’s kind of a hot-button subject for trans women. Trans guys, too, except I don’t talk to them as much to really know the kind of questions they get asked.” The two cocktails combined dare her to add, “Plus, you know, strap-ons,” to which Penny nods semi-sagely and Amy looks horrified.

“It’s lucky you have Faisal to pay for your surgery. I can’t imagine going through what you’re going through,” Bernadette says. “I guess that makes me lucky, but I wish I understood it better.”

“What, the whole transition thing or surgery in particular? We’re managing okay pre-op and that’s all you need to know,” Maya says a little tersely.

“That’s all we _want_ to know,” Amy says unexpectedly. “We just want to be sure you’re happy and fulfilled in your relationship. Not everyone can have something based on a perfect meeting of minds like Sheldon and I.”

“Amy, you masturbate with an electric toothbrush,” Penny snaps. “Don’t try to pretend everything’s just fine.”

“Too much information,” Priya says.

“It works for us,” Amy says, and that seems to be the end of the discussion as far as she’s concerned.

“Well, everything’s fine between me and Howie,” Bernadette says. “At least he stays awake for more than five minutes after sex now sometimes.”

Maya isn’t sure she wanted to know that, and says so. Bernadette just shrugs and gives her an endearing little smile.

 

“Stuart’s been drawing pictures of me,” Maya tells the group when she’s halfway through her Toblerone cocktail. Bernadette has developed a definite list to the left; it’s lucky they’re in a booth instead of at one of the tables and she can lean against the plush seat back.

“Awww,” Penny says. “He did my portrait once. He’s an amazing artist.”

“There’s a bit more to this than portraits,” Maya admits.

“That’s kind of hot.” Amy’s given in and is drinking another Sex on the Pool Table.

“It is, yeah.” Maya thinks of last night and goes red. Penny grins at her and lifts her glass in another toast. Maya is coming to understand why Penny got a cab over instead of driving. She just hopes that Bernadette and Amy did as well, although Amy’s at least a little more upright than Bernadette.

“I can’t imagine Leonard ever doing that. Maybe sculpting me out of Lego or something,” Priya says.

Maya snorts. It’s not that unlikely. She makes a mental note to suggest it to him next time she sees him, out of pure scientific curiosity to see if he really is that idiotic. She doesn’t remember exactly when she crossed the line from being one of the boys to being one of the girls, but she’s most definitely in girl territory now, and aside from Penny asking _The Question_ , she feels pretty safe.

 

The only downside to the evening is that when they finally go outside to hail a cab (or a couple, since they all live in different directions), someone pegs a beer can at them from out of a car window, followed by the yelled word, “ _Sluts!_ ” that trails behind the car as it blazes past.

“Anyone get the license plate?” Penny asks, digging for her phone.

“No,” the other four chorus. “He was going too fast,” Bernadette adds.

“Bernie, right now you couldn’t read a snail’s license plate,” Amy says as kindly as possible, which isn’t very. Bernadette starts giggling anyway.

Maya shares a cab with Penny and gets a quick peck on the lips goodnight. She automatically feels guilty but she’s also getting accustomed to the idea of kisses being friendly instead of necessarily a sexually charged act. The kiss she gives Stuart to wake him up when she gets home definitely has a sexual charge to it, even though Stuart looks a little cross when his eyes open.

“Maya, I have to go to work in the morning.”

Maya pulls her top off and snuggles against him for a second before wriggling down the bed, seeing his eyes go wide on the way.

She’s gone down on him before but never had him finish in her mouth, and she’s not sure if it’s because she’s drunk or just really wants to or both, but she’s desperately curious as to what he tastes like. She kisses and licks and sucks, remembering what used to feel good on her when she was on the receiving end of this, and Stuart stops protesting and starts breathing fast instead, gathering up handfuls of sheet and clinging to them.

“Maya, Maya, I’m going to—”

Maya lifts her head for a second to say, “That’s the point,” and Stuart moans helplessly, his hips jerking up again and again. The sensation of him actively moving into her mouth is a whole new feeling; oh, it’s not that she hasn’t gone down on a guy before (again, thanks Haroon and Tanvir; she feels like she should send them an email to thank them for all their lessons), but this is _Stuart_ , and he’s usually restrained about his reactions to her, as if he’s trying not to freak her out. This is one of the few times he’s let go, and it feels amazing. She lets out a soft moan around her mouthful, and Stuart answers her with a louder moan and bucks up into her mouth again, his cock rubbing against the roof of her mouth. Five seconds later she does get to taste him as he floods her mouth; it’s salty but not unbearably so. In fact, it makes her lick her lips and then go back to lick him clean, and Stuart whimpers helplessly.

“Oh... my... God.”

Maya has to fix his pajama pants for him; he’s too out of it to do it himself. She gets into her own pajamas while he’s lying there with a dazed smile on his face and slides into bed beside him.

“Good?” she asks solicitously.

“I had no idea how good that could be.”

“Haven’t you had anyone do that for you before?”

“Um, not since college... I had a few experiences, but they weren’t all that great, and after that I stuck to regular sex.”

“I hate to tell you this, but you’re not going to get regular sex from me. Not for a long time.”

“Oh, I can think of a few things we’ll be able to do,” Stuart says.

Maya’s a little puzzled by this statement, until she next checks her email and finds an email from Fetlife titled _alyssumbloom has requested to be friends with you_. She logs into the site as _myohmaya_ and accepts the request, going straight to her relationships page, dithering over what to add Stuart as. Finally she settles on “In a relationship”; she’ll think more about the D/s components later, although when she navigates to his profile she sees he’s listed himself as a switch, which makes her smile. She’s pleased he’s got the confidence to say it somewhere public. He doesn’t have much listed under his Fetishes, but she’s sure once he has more time to play with the site (it _is_ a very new profile; he hasn’t even put a picture up) he’ll add more.

The one thing he _has_ added that makes her mouth go dry and her cock twitch is that he’s curious about giving anal. He’s only barely touched her there a couple of times, although it makes her come like a bomb going off when he does. Maya’s glad she’s already in the bedroom when she reads it; it makes it easier for her to open one of her drawers and pull out her lube and the vibrating butt plug she’s only tried once before. It’s not as much fun playing alone but she stretches herself open with two fingers and then slowly presses the plug inside.

The vibration is too much for her. She stops it and just moves the plug to rest against her g-spot (well, technically her prostate, but she doesn’t call it that) and squirms against the full feeling. Then she starts playing with the tip of her cock, the part that will one day be her clit, imagining Stuart pressed against her, pushing into her a little at a time, forcing his hard cock through the tight muscle at her entrance...

She blesses her good imagination even as she’s moaning aloud and squeezing the plug tight, thinking of how it would feel to have Stuart come inside her for the first time, thinking how it would be just fine for him to be as curious with her as he wants.

 

**Then (January 2011): Analyzing**

Amy flips through the pages of her notebook, finding the newest entry and setting the notebook up on the stand beside her computer to type up her latest results. She’s been trying to be as careful as she can with gathering data, given that her subject’s been quite vocal about questions to be avoided.

She’s not quite sure what she’s going to do with all the data she’s gathered. One subject does not make a significant sample size. But Maya’s willing to answer a lot of questions and be quite open about her experiences, aside from some exceptions.

It’s odd in a way because Amy’s never really thought of penis envy working the other way. Oh, she knew there were people out there who transitioned male to female, but never really got to understand why until now. That’s not to say that she’s thinking about transitioning the other way (although she’s thought about thinking about it and then dismissed it as not quite what she’s interested in). Aside from the potential applications of her data to a new thesis topic or something like that, she’s also learning a lot more about the world of trans people than she previously knew.

For one thing, it really is a world apart. She has realized that as a cissexual person she will never entirely understand the feeling of being in the wrong body. Sheldon sometimes complains that he’s not a robot, but that’s entirely different; she’s actually annoyed that he tries to compare the feelings. She doesn’t think that it’s at all fair to people with real body dysphoria. Likewise, when she finds out that there are people in the furry community comparing themselves to trans people because they’ve been born as the wrong _species_ , she wants to leap into the conversation and yell at them. The only reason that she doesn’t is that she doesn’t feel she has the right to speak up on behalf of trans people because she isn’t one.

She just hopes that Maya doesn’t see any of this nonsense. From some of the things that Maya’s said she has enough pressure on her as it is, between work and her family and just learning how to be herself. Amy has never realized how lucky she is to be comfortable in her own skin. Not that she doesn’t appreciate Penny’s makeovers, of course, but she’d rather be as natural as she can, and makeup doesn’t make her feel natural; it makes her feel like a painted doll. She can understand why it works for other women, but it’s not her favorite thing ever. Probably the thing that _is_ her favorite part is the time spent interacting with Penny.

Perhaps because she’s finding her own place as one of the girls is why she’s so comfortable with Maya being one of the girls as well. Bernadette has her misgivings but that’s more to do with the fact that she’s ill at ease talking about her relationship with Howard around the woman who used to be Howard’s male best friend. Amy’s not sure whether Maya’s still Howard’s best friend any more or whether that role has gone to Bernadette by default. There are probably rules about that sort of thing when engagement is involved.

Amy finishes typing up her notes and gets dressed for bed. She feels a familiar twinge of loneliness as she slides between the covers. Most nights she wishes for Sheldon to be there with her, his long lean body stretched out beside hers; sometimes she wishes for Penny’s body curving into and with her; sometimes she wishes for a faceless stranger, just anyone to hold her and touch her and help her discover herself.

She (quietly) envies Maya on that front, at least; Maya has people to help her change and evolve. Amy doesn’t know how to ask for help, or even if she can.


	6. chapter five: I won’t make promises to you that I can’t keep

**Now (February 2011): Growing**

They’re right on the cusp of spring, the first green leaves showing on the trees freed from winter’s chill, Maya starting to contemplate wearing shorter skirts to flaunt her freshly waxed legs (Latisha is brilliant and nonjudgmental and has a deep belly laugh that Maya loves to hear). The smell of growing things is in the air and in the ground. They’ve changed their Facebook statuses to reflect the truth of their relationship, and Stuart’s parents are gently nagging him to bring Maya home to meet them; they live in Santa Monica, so distance isn’t an issue, but timing is. Diane Bloom suggests next week; Stuart suggests next decade; between the two of them they eventually agree on Easter. Even though that’s the end of March it still seems awfully close.

“It’s going to be fine, Maya,” Stuart says. They’re lounging on the couch, the window open to let in the crisp fresh air, only vaguely looking at hotels in Santa Monica (Diane has hinted very heavily that Stuart’s old bedroom is still available as a guest room). “I promise. My mom wouldn’t say you were pretty if she didn’t mean it.”

“Do you think... I mean, she must know I’m trans.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she does. She’s probably had a good poke through your profile and found all your groups and worked it out from there, if she couldn’t tell from your profile picture. Not that you look, you know, bad in your profile picture, but it’s possible to tell.”

“It’s okay, Stuart. I know I don’t look all the way femme.”

“You could use one of my drawings as your profile picture.”

“They’re amazing, but I like the honesty of having my photo up there. It’s the same as having my real gender and sexuality on there.”

“Or like having your real fetishes on Fetlife?” Stuart doesn’t manage to say it without his ears going a little pink, but he’s giving her a dark, desire-filled look that sends her stomach into a spin dive.

“Yes, that too...”

Stuart takes her hand in his and rises from the couch. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

Neither of them have showered yet and they’re usually pretty fastidious about it. Maya flings herself under the spray and soaps herself thoroughly all over, mind racing at the implications of the juxtaposition of the mention of her fetishes and the invitation to bed. Stuart sits on the closed toilet lid and watches her shower; Maya watches him in her turn and is sure Stuart’s actually putting on a display for her, closing his eyes when he rubs his hands over his chest and down over his cock, which is already half-hard.

They don’t bother with getting dressed, just tumble straight onto the bed in a tangle of wet limbs and questing mouths. Maya’s determined to take advantage of the fact that Stuart cleaned himself so well and is on her belly between his legs without much in the way of preliminaries. He’s harder now but she can still take his whole cock into her mouth and feel the way it hardens all the way as she sucks and he whimpers, his hands going to her head and tangling through her hair, which is getting long enough to tie back and therefore long enough for him to pull lightly in the way they’ve learned she likes.

She’s really enjoying the feeling of him in her mouth and the taste of his pre-come, which is sweeter than usual, and so when he uses his grip on her hair to pull her off him and maneuver her up the bed, she has to pout at him.

“Don’t pout like that, you’ll end up with frown lines.”

“I was having fun.”

Stuart’s hand covers one of her small breasts entirely, his palm circling over her hard nipple, drawing a whimper from her. “I’ve got a different sort of fun in mind for tonight.”

Maya can hardly hear herself think over her heartbeat racing in her ears. She wants to ask him what he’s got in mind but can hear the shakiness in his voice and decides to just let him do what he wants to without the pressure of questioning.

He starts by kissing her, deep and long, one hand rubbing right down her back to cup her ass and stroke one rounded cheek the way he would stroke her breast. His other hand stays on her breast and Maya’s caught in between his hands and his mouth and can’t do anything but try to spread her legs a little and roll toward him. Stuart stops her with a soft pinch to the top of her thigh and the hand on her breast moves up to fish under the pillow.

“What—” is as far as Maya gets before Stuart kisses her again, nipping her lip, trying to distract her from whatever he’s passing from one hand to the other, and she has her eyes closed out of instinct so she doesn’t see it.

The snap of the cap of the lube opening is familiar, though, and her heart literally skips a beat in its relentless thunder. Then she feels the cool slick stroke of his fingers between her legs and it feels like her heart is beating there too.

“Oh... God!” He’s only just rubbing his fingers over her, but the sensation is indescribably good, promising more, especially when he makes little circles with just one fingertip, pressing in the tiniest bit. “Stuart...”

Stuart kisses her again and pushes that finger in to the first knuckle, then the second, and Maya spreads her legs wider and pushes back against his hand, silently begging. The power of speech has left her; she can only make needy noises now, pleading whimpers into his mouth, which is working hot against hers, even as he’s so cool and careful about what he’s doing to her ass. His fingertip brushes against that spot inside her and she snaps her hips back and makes a noise like she’s been electrocuted.

The kiss breaks and she’s staring into his eyes, which are calm and collected compared to what she imagines is her own wild-eyed expression. His finger slips out of her and then returns with company and more slick lube. She remembers the first time he made her come just by playing with her perineum and breasts and wonders if he’s planning to repeat that experience with a little deeper action.

“Stuart...”

“Yes, Maya?” He teases at her entrance with two fingers; she tries to push back onto them and he smacks her ass lightly, making her eyes fall shut again.

“I... don’t remember.”

“Good.” He sets his fingertips back at her entrance and begins easing them both in. “Means I’m doing this well.”

“God!”

Stuart doesn’t say anything to that, but a tiny smile is tugging at the corner of his lips, and Maya has to force her eyes to stay open and not lapse closed with pleasure, because she wants to remember him the way he is right now, with control and confidence, beautifully unafraid.

She’s lying on her stomach now, head pillowed on her arms, and Stuart works his other arm out from under her to stroke her back in time with the movements of his fingers in her. When she tries to buck up against his fingers he puts his hand flat on the small of her back and pins her down for a second before moving so he’s on his knees beside her. Maya tries to ride up against him again despite his hand holding her down, and he pulls both hands away all of a sudden, leaving her feeling empty and exposed.

“No!” She doesn’t really mean _no_ , she means _more_ and _don’t stop_ , and manages to get those words out as well, turning her head to look at him. She sees the stone set in his eyes and tries out a pout anyway. Stuart shakes his head, but he’s got his hand cupped and is trickling more lube onto his fingers.

Maya moves all of maybe half an inch, about to sit up and demand what the hell he thinks he’s doing tormenting her like this, and one hand slaps down _hard_ on her ass and he twists three fingers into her at once and she can’t tell if she’s burning up from pain or pleasure or both. Stuart doesn’t let her think, just keeps moving his fingers relentlessly in her, his free hand stroking the reddened skin of her ass slowly, soothingly.

He doesn’t spank her again even when she starts moaning and pushing up against his fingers when they hit the right spot inside her, although part of her wishes he would. He just focuses on the rhythm of his fingers, moving at the same swift pace as her heart.

The whole universe turns around the axis of his hands on her.

At last his fingers slide out of her. Maya whines with the loss but then her heart does another little tango step when she hears the rip of condom foil. He moves onto her, his body stretching out atop hers, and she feels the blunt nudge of him against her entrance. He props himself up on one arm for a moment so he can guide himself in with the other hand; she’s so slickly wet that it takes him an excruciatingly sweet-painful minute to get inside her. His breathing is surprisingly not rapid, considering; he sounds like he might even be counting seconds between breaths.

When he’s finally all the way inside her she can feel it right down to her bones. She has had a lot of sex, especially considering that she couldn’t talk to other women unless she was drunk until she came out, but right now she thinks she knows the difference between having sex and making love.

Stuart’s hands settle on her hips and silently urge her up onto her knees. Maya lifts up and Stuart leans forward, driving right into her as he does so, and pulls the pillows down to tuck under her stomach for support.

Only then do they stop for a moment to savor the feeling of being joined, the heat of the two of them combined greater than anything they could produce alone. Maya sighs with pleasure and settles her weight on her knees and elbows as Stuart finally begins to move within her, murmuring something under his breath about how good she feels.

It doesn’t take long for slow and gentle to give way to something a little faster, a little rougher. Stuart’s fingertips dig into her left hip and his right hand finds her breast and squeezes, rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger.

“Harder?” he asks in what’s almost a growl.

“God!”

Stuart takes that for the _yes_ that it is and rides her harder, his fingers leaving decidedly non-artistic bruises on her hip, his other hand pinching at her nipples until Maya feels like she’s going to unravel completely from his utter control over her reactions and her needs. She is unused to giving herself over so fully to anyone, much less her sensitive shy Stuart.

Her hair’s falling in her face and she can’t lift a hand to brush it away. She blows at it futilely and Stuart’s hand leaves her breasts to gather her hair back and hold it at the nape of her neck. Whether he means it as a kindness or otherwise doesn’t matter; Maya can no longer hold herself up and her knees shiver out from beneath her. She can hear herself making incoherent sounds that were meant to be his name.

Stuart’s fingers twist tighter in her hair and Maya turns her head to the side in time to see his eyes close and his head tilt back as he comes, shuddering into her, collapsing against her, chest against her back, their heartbeats wild and out of synch and perfectly matched.

 

They shower together after; Maya can sense Stuart putting his walls back up and is determined not to let him.

“I guess you can change that from ‘curious about giving’ to ‘into giving’,” she says, and he manages a laugh.

“Only for you. I don’t think I could with anyone else.”

“Well, you’re mine. So don’t you dare.”

Stuart pulls her into a sudden hard kiss that leaves her spluttering as she gets the shower spray right in her face.

“What brought that on?”

“I like the idea of being yours.” The little smile on his face spreads. “I like the idea of you being mine, too.”

“All yours.” Maya draws him into another kiss that involves less of anyone getting hit in the face with water.

They go back to bed after freshening up, snuggling together with their foreheads touching. Even with her arm right down across his waist Maya can feel Stuart’s heart racing.

“That was...” His words come out shaky and uncertain.

“Amazing?”

“Scary,” Stuart corrects her.

“But amazing?”

“Yeah. Yes. God, Maya.” He’s shaking now and she pulls him closer so their bodies are touching all the way along, tucking one leg over his in a protective gesture. “I never... I’m not used to topping.”

“You don’t have to do it all the time.”

“I don’t think I _can_.”

“It felt good.” Maya kisses him; Stuart kisses back and then nuzzles his head in against her shoulder to kiss her neck. “You made me feel good.” She can feel him smile against her skin.

“I did, didn’t I.” It’s a statement, not a question, but Maya nods anyway so he can feel it.

They lie cuddled together for a little while longer and then draw apart – they worked out early on that they can’t actually sleep snuggled together because even in winter they overheat.

“Night, Stuart,” Maya murmurs sleepily.

He twirls a lock of her still-damp hair around his finger and pulls lightly, bringing her mouth to his. “I said I wasn’t used to topping,” he says, lips brushing against hers. “That definitely doesn’t rule out doing it again.” He kisses her harder and she can feel that secret stone-strong other-self in the kiss. “Night, Maya.”

He rolls onto his side and is asleep within moments; Maya lies awake a little longer, looking at the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and smiling into the darkness.

 

Maya’s sore the next morning in an empty aching way. They’re both quiet at breakfast, eating at their respective computers. Stuart’s watching an episode of _Danger Mouse_ on YouTube and occasionally snickering.

“So, what’s ‘alyssum bloom’ mean?” Maya asks.

Instead of just explaining, Stuart gets up and finds a book amongst his comics, an actual novel, not a book full of drawings going _pow_ and _zap_. There’s a topless woman on the cover, her arms crossed over her bare chest, and she has an interesting tattoo on her back.

“Do I have to read the whole thing to understand?”

“No , but you have to read the whole thing to enjoy it. There’s adventure and political intrigue. It’s quite fascinating.” Stuart’s tone suggests that Maya should really give the book a proper try, and so she puts it into her bag to take to work. She’s tempted to cheat by Googling “Kushiel’s Dart + alyssum” but doesn’t; to tell the truth she’s interested to see if it’ll give her any hints as to what makes Stuart tick.

 

She’s reading it in the cafeteria at lunchtime and has only gotten a few pages in when Leslie Winkle thumps her tray down on the table and asks, “Isn’t that a bit smutty for work?”

Maya blinks at her. “Not so far.”

Leslie looks at where Maya’s finger is holding the book open and nods. “You’re a while out from the smut, then. I didn’t know you were into fantasy erotica.”

“Stuart gave it to me,” Maya says, not sure why she’s making excuses to Leslie of all people.

“Oh, your boyfriend? It’s always the quiet ones.” Leslie sticks a straw into her juice box and drains half of it in a long swallow. “Listen, I heard about your office getting trashed and I just wanted to check that you’re doing okay.”

“Uh, yeah, sure I am. Why do you want to know?”

“Female solidarity.” Leslie gestures around the cafeteria with her fork, accidentally flicking a glob of mashed potato across the room. “Oops. But you don’t see many of us here.”

“So you... you don’t have a problem with me?”

Leslie snorts. “The only problem I have is with Sheldon thinking it’s still the 1950s. I’m surprised he hasn’t told you to get back in the kitchen and make him a sandwich yet.”

“Sheldon wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, he told _me_ to get out of the lab and go have babies, so I’m extrapolating.”

Maya winces. “Do you want me to tell him off for you?”

“I told him off plenty myself, but thanks. You know, it’s weird that his computer was the one thing in your office that didn’t get touched.”

“No way.” Maya’s shaking her head before Leslie can finish the sentence. “He might be misogynistic, but he’s not transphobic. Also I don’t think he’s strong enough to hang his chair out of the window.”

“He does have a certain stick insect element to his physique,” Leslie agrees, and both women laugh. (Albeit a little guiltily on Maya’s part.) “I didn’t really think it was him anyway. He’s too OCD.”

“You think?” Maya remembers Sheldon picking up paperclips from the floor like a vampire gathering seeds thrown at its feet. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Leslie laughs again and Maya sees Leonard look their way as he walks over from the hot food line, nearly tripping over his own feet when he sees who Maya’s sitting with. He diverts his direction to another table, and when Howard comes in Howard dithers between them until Leslie gives him a sweet smile – then he hastily goes to sit down with Leonard.

“Did you really mean all that stuff you said to Leonard about how you were planning to bring up your children?” Maya asks boldly.

Leslie shakes her head. “No way! I just realized that it wasn’t going to work out between us. He’s always had eyes for Penny. I just wanted to give him – us – an easy out.”

“He’s dating my sister now,” Maya says, feeling a little defensive of Priya’s relationship. Leonard hasn’t looked at Penny twice since he started seeing Priya, and Maya would like to think that he’s not going to do anything stupid. Besides, Penny seems happier without him; it’s not that they were badly suited to each other, but it could have been better.

“Really? Good for him. I can’t believe Howard’s engaged.”

“Believe it. He won’t shut up about it, so it must be true.” Maya gives Leslie a wry smile. “I mean, he’s lied about stuff in the past, but I can’t see Bernadette playing along with it this long. Plus he did propose in front of us all. Except Penny wasn’t there.”

“How come?”

“Priya doesn’t like her hanging around Leonard.”

“Sounds like your sister has some jealousy issues.” Leslie has a knowing look on her face. “You should talk to her. Tell her she doesn’t need to worry. Leonard’s almost painfully clingy when he’s in a relationship.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“If Priya doesn’t mind it, then she should enjoy it.” Leslie stirs her creamed corn into her mashed potatoes and salts the mixture. “I don’t regret breaking up with Leonard – or Howard – but I do sort of miss being with someone.”

It’s the most open Leslie’s ever been with Maya, and it makes her feel simultaneously pleased and a little uncomfortable. She doesn’t want TMI from Leslie any more than from her sister or anyone else for that matter. Especially not about Howard.

“I’ll talk to her. Anything else I need to know, oh guru of relationships?”

Leslie smirks. “Nothing that that book can’t tell you about what Stuart might be into, if he likes it. How come he’s got you reading it? Did he tell you what it’s about?”

Maya avoids the first question. “He told me not to even read the blurb, to just go into it with an open mind.”

“Oh yeah. An open mind definitely helps. Just be prepared for anything.”

Maya looks down at the cover of the book. It’s definitely suggestive enough, coupled with what little she’s read so far, to suggest that there will indeed be plenty of “anything” to be prepared for.

 

Due to her conversation with Leslie and her unwillingness to pull the book out and read when she’s meant to be working with Sheldon, Maya hasn’t gotten much further by the time she gets home. It’s her turn to make dinner, so she whips up some macaroni and cheese, scatters bacon through it, and shoves it in the oven, settling down on the couch to keep reading.

Stuart comes in fifteen minutes later, looking exhausted and dusty, and goes straight for the shower. When he comes out he’s only wearing boxers and one of his shirts hanging open, and he makes a beeline for the oven.

“Fancy dinner,” he comments.

“I wanted to do my homework,” Maya says, holding the book up.

“Where are you up to?”

“Not very far.”

“I’ll read to you after dinner,” Stuart informs her, and that’s just what he does, sitting on the end of the couch with her head in his lap, the _Lord of the Rings_ soundtrack playing softly in the background as he reads to her about the Houses of the Night Court, about the Midwinter Masque, and about Alyssum House, the house of modesty.

“I think you’d be Jasmine after last night,” Maya says. “You’ve really nailed sensual pleasure.”

Stuart smiles. “And you’d be Orchis – joy and laughter.”

“So... what are we dressing as for Halloween this year?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find some inspiration in here somewhere.” Stuart puts the book down for a moment and strokes her hair until she’s totally relaxed and pliant under his hands. Then he picks the book back up and keeps reading, weaving a tangled web of intrigue with his voice and Jacqueline Carey’s words. It’s fun being read to; she could listen to his voice all night, if she had the chance.

“You know what...” Maya says as Stuart finishes a chapter and closes the book.

“What?”

“I think if you expanded the store to include fantasy and science fiction books, you could do really well. Maybe just a couple of shelves to start with, and you could move the plushies to hang from the ceiling.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Stuart says in a tone that means he really likes the idea and wishes he’d thought of it himself. “I have a couple of contacts I could talk to, and we can go back to IKEA for more shelving, make it more like a living room... I was thinking of selling off the dollar comics in bulk on eBay, since they’re just not moving, so that would make some space for storage under the tables...”

Maya smiles, her eyes still peacefully shut. She’s pleased to hear him so enthusiastic. He’s come a long way from the quiet Stuart she met when she was first learning her way around Pasadena.

 

The next morning she gets a text on her phone; someone thinks it’s Halloween already, or maybe the first of April, because Stuart’s store has been egged and TPed. She sends a quick email to Siebert claiming illness, gives Sheldon a brief rundown of the situation, and then goes down there to find Stuart grimly scrubbing at the dried-on mess. She starts pulling down the strands of toilet paper wrapped around the Comics Center sign, and Stuart pauses in his work to run a hand up the back of her thigh; she’s glad she’s wearing leggings under her skirt, because it’s a chilly day.

“Kids,” he says. “Some idiot kids. It’s got to be.”

“I hope so,” is all Maya can say in response. She doesn’t know how to say that maybe he’s being attacked because of her. At least they didn’t break anything or steal anything.

“They’re probably pissed that they can’t afford to shop here,” Stuart says lightly, scraping at egg yolk.

“Probably.”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to eat eggs again.”

“Not even in cake?”

“Maybe in cake,” Stuart concedes.

Maya does a café run when they’re almost finished and they sit behind the counter eating slices of black forest cake and drinking strong coffee. Stuart has his sketchpad out and first draws Maya savoring a bite of cake, and then draws the layout of the store as it is in a heavy pencil, pulling out a lighter pencil to sketch in possible locations for bookshelves. Maya looks up at the ceiling to assess the potential for hanging shelves for the plushies; there are kids’ soft toy storage baskets at IKEA.

Finally Stuart puts his pencil down, consults his phone, and then dials a number. He looks tense, and Maya puts her hand on his thigh.

“Hi, Linda? Stuart Bloom. Listen, my partner suggested I start stocking some spec fiction, and I was wondering what you thought... yes, I have a girlfriend now... just over a month, why? Oh... right. Yeah, so, have you got any ideas of who I should get in touch with there to start stocking your stuff? I’m going to approach some other places as well, but I wanted to talk to you first.”

Maya picks up the pencil and doodles a heart on the edge of the floor plan, putting their initials in it, and adding a Cupid’s arrow. Stuart turns pink. Maya writes _Maya Bloom_ under it and Stuart turns even pinker and takes the pencil off her, tapping the back of her wrist with it. But he doesn’t erase what she’s written; instead, he adds a second heart around the one she drew and then starts doodling a bunch of flowers beside it.

“Uh-huh... uh-huh... okay, sure thing Linda. I’ll call her. Do you have her number?” He interrupts the delicate line of flowers with a number that looks like an international one; it has too many digits to be local. “Thanks. Is she around today? Uh-huh... okay, thanks for that. Give my love to K.T.”

“Who’s Linda? And who’s Katie?” Maya asks as soon as he hangs up.

“Linda’s an editor at Buen Rollo, which is an indie publishing company down in Mexico. K.T.—” he emphasizes the initials “—is her partner. I met Linda at a con and I know K.T. via Facebook.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Jealous?” Stuart teases, still pink-cheeked.

“Maybe a little.”

Stuart assesses the empty store, and gets up, flipping the Superman sign over to closed and shutting the blinds. He takes Maya’s hand and pulls her to her feet, switching the music player on and scrolling through the songs until he finds a slow one he likes. Then he puts his arms around her and they dance in between the tables of comic books, watched by an audience of plush Pokémon and Mario figures.

The fact that the next song to come up on random is Jonathan Coulton’s “Re: Your Brains” does nothing to dampen their spirits. Stuart bites the side of Maya’s neck lightly, high up near her ear, and she shivers.

“Do you think people can see in through those blinds?” she asks, trying to sound innocent, and Stuart inhales sharply and then pins her against the counter.

Leslie’s right; it’s always the quiet ones. Although neither of them manage to remain particularly quiet for long. As it is it’s lucky Stuart was already doing some cleaning up, because there’s more to be done by the time they’re through.

 

**Then (October 1995): Drawing**

Diane marches into her son’s room, where Stuart’s got his head down, working on a still life painting at his desk.

“I found your sketchbook downstairs. Mind telling me exactly why you’re drawing naked women?” she demands.

Stuart looks away from the bowl of fruit. “It’s part of my life drawing class. Everyone’s doing it.”

“You scared the life out of me!” Diane tosses the sketchbook onto Stuart’s bed. “I thought you’d taken up some sort of street art. You know you can just ask me or your father for money if you need it.”

“No, Mom. It’s not like that.” Stuart doesn’t mention that he’s started doing caricatures of people for five bucks a pop, or that he’s started looking for apartments to rent. He loves his parents dearly, but his mother in particular is reluctant to let him go; he hasn’t said anything about moving out, but he knows that when his older sister Annie moved out, Diane was inconsolable for almost a month.

“Well, anyway, dinner’s almost ready. Come down soon, okay?” She kisses the top of his head and leaves him alone.

Stuart tries to pick up where he left off with the painting, but the red for the apple refuses to come out the way he wants it to, and he gives up with a sense of relief when his father yells up the stairs five minutes later.

Of Stuart’s parents, Diane is the one he gets his artistic side from; Harry is the one who balances them out. Pragmatic and sensible, he’s not immune to a little fun, though, and he’s sculpted the meat loaf into the shape of a Halloween pumpkin, grinning mouth and round eyes filled out with mashed potato. Stuart laughs when he sees it, and Harry grins as widely as the pumpkin.

“It’s good to hear you laugh, son,” he says a little gruffly.

Stuart settles into his seat and doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know how to tell his father that he can’t exactly keep from being depressed; that he’d like to laugh more, too. He’s pretty sure that the anti-depressants he’s on aren’t working, but this is his third round and he’s sick of the side effects that come from changing from one to another. Plus they dull his imagination a little, and he’s almost willing to be depressed and able to express himself through art instead of vaguely okay (which is all he ever seems to manage with the drugs) and artistically blocked.

Annie calls after dinner to tell them how she’s doing at medical school in New York and to complain about the cold.

“Go swimming for me, Stuie,” she pleads, and Stuart promises he will, despite the fact that it’s not really swimming season.

He doesn’t go that night, but the next day after class he drives out to Santa Monica beach and sits on the sand, watching the waves come in. He’s just bought a set of watercolor pencils and scoops up some seawater to use them with, making his drawing of the foam hitting the sand as realistic as he possibly can. He weights it down with a couple of shells and lies back on the sand, not minding that it gets in his hair. The seagulls circling overhead sound lonely and lost. A lot of people hate seagulls, think they’re dirty scavengers, but Stuart quite likes them. Maybe he’s part Tolkien Elf, longing for the Undying Lands.

Annie sends him back a postcard of the New York City skyline, thanking him for the painting and saying she’s going to mat and frame it herself when she has time. When she’ll find time around her studies Stuart doesn’t know, but a week later he gets a letter consisting of another thank you note and a photo of the watercolor hanging on her wall. It looks curiously flat there, as though the waves’ motion has been arrested, trapped behind the glass.

He can empathize with them.


	7. chapter six: what’s the go with all these new set of rules that you live by?

**Now (March 2011): Dominating**

Maya gets a lot of mileage out of the skirt and leggings combination through early spring, not least because Stuart loves the look on her and tells her so, frequently. She pulls together a proper Goth combination, all black except for a deep wine-red buttoned shirt that stops just above the top of her skirt, completing it with a silver-studded black collar, and Stuart pounces her so hard that night that she resolves to wear it more often.

The Goth scene isn’t really her thing – truth be told, it’s not exactly Stuart’s either – but the two of them go out clubbing one night with Howard and Bernadette. Bernadette looks downright foxy with temporary red and orange streaks in her hair; more punk than Goth, but nobody’s keeping track after a few tequila shots. Maya’s wearing her collar and Stuart keeps slipping his finger through the O-ring at the front and pulling her close to kiss her.

“You should just put me on a leash,” Maya says, and his brown eyes darken as his pupils dilate. Oh, really? Well, that’s interesting to know, and not something he disclosed on his Fetlife profile, unless the idea just now is the first time it’s occurred to him.

“One day,” he says softly, lips brushing her ear. Then he lets her go and sweeps Bernadette out onto the dance floor, making a game effort at dancing to “Call Me When You’re Sober”.

Howard knocks back another tequila shot and puts his hand on Maya’s thigh. Maya pushes it away. “Howard, we talked about this. Stuart isn’t going to share and you’re engaged. Knock it off.”

“But you’re so pretty.”

“I know,” Maya says, too annoyed to be self-deprecating. “But I’m off the market.”

Right then someone taps her on the shoulder. It’s a familiar-looking girl, who beckons Maya to get up and dance. She does, if only to get Howard off her back. She does glance back and see him looking wounded, but another drink and a dance with Bernadette will get that look off his face.

“I’m Sarah,” her dance partner says over the music. “Don’t I know you? You and your friend had the fake tattoo sleeves.”

“Oh my God, Sarah! I remember you!” Maya smiles at her. “How are you?”

“Same old same old. So, you’re a woman now.”

“Um, yeah. I have been for a while.”

“Cool.” The music gives way to Choke the Word’s “In June”, a song Maya only knows because she’s seen it mentioned on one of the roleplaying forums she frequents. She wonders if the DJ is a gamer or just likes indie music. It’s a hypnotic song, and Sarah grabs her arms and pulls her close, more animated than Maya’s ever seen her before.

“Cool song,” she says.

“Yeah.” Sarah has a tendency to prompt monosyllabic answers.

Maya’s phone vibrates in her tiny little handbag. She’s surprised she can feel it given how much she’s moving around. She excuses herself and ducks into the women’s bathroom to take the call; of all the people it could be, it’s Amy.

“Amy? What’s up?”

“I’ve spoken with Faisal and he agrees with me that I should have an additional test subject with whom I am not as emotionally close as you to gather further data on transgendered women. I took the liberty of suggesting your friend Sarah and he’s agreed to fund her surgery in addition to yours.”

For a second Maya totally blanks on the name, and then she realizes that Amy means (of course) her trans friend Sarah, not Goth Sarah, who’s followed her into the bathroom and is sitting on the edge of the counter, leaning in close to the mirror to reapply her black lipstick.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s hardly a joking matter. I suggest you contact her as soon as possible so that we can arrange a consultation appointment in Philadelphia for you both.”

When things start moving, they start moving _fast_.

“Um, okay, sure. I’m out right now, but I’ll email her as soon as I get home. What would your research involve?”

She can practically hear Amy’s shrug through the phone. “More or less the same sorts of questions as I’ve asked you, minus the personal element of relationships within our in-group. I’m also interested to know about her point of view on transitioning while already in a relationship. I may need to speak to her partner as well.”

“Her _wife_ ,” Maya corrects, seeing Sarah’s eyebrows raise in the mirror.

“Her wife,” Amy agrees hastily. “Let me know as soon as you can, please. Talk to you soon.” She hangs up before Maya can quite process everything that just got said to her.

“So, you’re being someone’s, like, lab rat?” Sarah asks.

“Not really. I mean, sort of, but it’s not a big deal. It’s a favor for a friend.”

“Right. Do you still like women now?”

“Um...”

Sarah moves closer. “I’m cool either way. You know, with you.”

Her lips are light and moist with fresh lipstick when they press against Maya’s. She’s not shy about slipping her tongue between Maya’s surprised lips straight away, and her little hand tangles in Maya’s hair, holding her close.

“ _Maya_!”

Maya sees a blur of blonde-orange-red out of the corner of her startled-open eyes and hastily pulls back from Sarah, losing a couple of hairs in the process. Bernadette turns a glare on Sarah, who mutters, “Whatever, sorry,” and scampers out of the bathroom. Maya makes a move to flee as well.

“Don’t you dare move,” Bernadette warns her before stomping into one of the stalls. She must pee at the speed of light because she’s out again within seconds and washing her hands. “Now, what the hell was that all about?”

“She started it,” Maya says, quite aware that this is the most pathetic excuse in the history of the world.

“I don’t care who started it! You need to go tell Stuart and apologize, and you need to tell that girl you are _not_ available.” Tears are standing in Bernadette’s eyes. “It’s bad enough that Howie won’t stop talking about you, and then to find you making out with some tramp...”

“We weren’t _making out_ , it was just a kiss, and I didn’t even kiss her back!”

Bernadette glares at her. “You have black on your lips.” She whips a tissue out of nowhere, spits on it, and scrubs viciously at Maya’s mouth until the black is gone and it’s red and swollen. “Now get out there and make your apologies.”

Maya slinks out, head down, and finds Sarah on her own at the bar.

“I should’ve told you up front I have a boyfriend,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

Sarah lifts one shoulder and droops it in defeat. “Yeah. Whatever. It’s cool. I’m not normally that pushy, you know. You’re just kind of really hot, especially now.”

“Well... thanks. I have to go now,” Maya says in a rush. She’s seen Stuart standing a little further away, looking around for her; Howard’s leaning back against the bar, looking quite a bit the worse for wear.

When she gets over to Stuart she lifts his hand and hooks his fingertip through the O-ring on her collar. “Take me outside. We need to talk.” Stuart looks terrified, and Maya remembers that _we need to talk_ is the scariest four-word phrase known to man. “Please? I did a bad thing,” she amends it, and he looks a little less terrified, although not entirely out of the woods.

They get outside where it’s marginally quieter and Maya confesses to the bathroom scene. Stuart listens silently and Maya wishes he’d just yell at her already. Instead, he pulls his finger out of the ring in her collar and slowly traces her lips with it.

“You look like you kissed her pretty hard.”

“Oh, no, that was Bernadette.” Stuart’s eyebrows go way up and Maya hastily adds, “She wiped the black lipstick off me and I guess she was pretty rough.”

“I really am going to have to keep you on a leash.” Stuart takes a step closer to her and Maya reflexively steps back, only to feel her shoulders hit the brick wall of the club. Stuart presses against her until she’s almost uncomfortably pinned between him and the wall, and kisses her thoroughly. “First your electrolygist and now this Goth girl. You’re just too irresistible to be let out in public.” His hands shoot out and pin her wrists to the wall at waist height. “I should take you home and tie you to the bed and remind you you’re mine,” he whispers into her ear, and Maya’s legs give way.

Stuart lets her sag a little and then pulls her back upright, giving her as stern a look as he can manage considering his usually angelic features.

“I like it when you’re possessive,” Maya says.

“Then we should definitely go home. Right now.”

“I’ll just tell Bernadette we’re—”

Stuart’s hand tightens on her wrist. “Right. Now,” he repeats, and Maya goes weak at the knees again.

She ends up sending Bernadette a text on the way to the car. Stuart has to drive because Maya’s too wound up; when they get to their apartment building he grabs the ring on her collar and holds her against the side of the car, kissing her hard, for a long couple of minutes before they go inside.

“I think maybe we should discuss a safeword,” he says once they’re inside with the door closed and locked. “I’m not going to do anything you won’t want – at least I hope not – but if it gets too intense...”

“Howard,” Maya says promptly. “Guaranteed to kill any scene.”

“I’ve seen how he looks at you,” Stuart says softly, and it’s in the very softness of his voice that Maya hears that she’s in trouble, real trouble. “Bedroom. Now.”

Maya goes with alacrity. Stuart follows her and she can feel his eyes on her, checking out her ass in the tight skirt she’s wearing. She makes a point of bending over instead of dropping to one knee to undo her boots and hears him click his tongue.

“None of this is your fault, but you need to learn to discourage people. You’re mine,” he tells her.

Maya can only nod. Stuart may be scared of topping, may be reluctant to do it, but when he does it, oh, it sets her on fire. She pulls her leggings off; her underwear comes with them by accident, and Stuart stays her hand when she goes to remove her skirt.

“Leave that on. And your top.”

She’s in no position to argue with that or with his directive to lie face down on the bed. She hears the slide of one of the drawers open, the clunk of the lube landing on the nightstand, along with the condom box, and then the whisper of satin. She lifts her head to look and Stuart puts his hand on the back of her head and pushes her back down.

“I don’t want to blindfold you tonight. I want you to see. But I don’t want you staring. Just feel.” He trails the strip of satin along her arm; he must have snuck it into the drawer recently, because she hasn’t seen it before. It’s forest green, and knots nicely around her wrist and the bedpost. There are four pieces in all, and soon she’s spread out and tied up like a scene from the book they’ve been reading. He’s pushed her skirt up to her waist, baring her ass, but otherwise left her clothes untouched.

“Comfortable?” Stuart asks.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The next thing Maya feels is the trail of leather cords down her spine. Oh God, he has a flogger. An actual flogger. She sneaks a peek at him; he’s pulled his shirt off and is just wearing black jeans and he looks ridiculously hot.

Then he brings the flogger down across her ass and she forgets to think about how he looks, her brain overtaken by the burst of sweet soft pain. He does it again, and again, and before long she’s torn between rising up to meet the strokes and trying to pull away all at the same time. She’s making incoherent noises and he’s just looking down at her with this perfectly stoic expression as he lashes her. Every so often he brings the strands down lightly on her upper thighs and trails them across her skin and she squirms when they fall softly between her spread legs.

He stops after – she thinks – about twenty-five strokes.

“Whose are you?” he asks.

“Yours.”

“Good girl.” He lays the flogger down on the nightstand and sits down beside her, running his fingers through her hair. She suspects it’s to calm himself down as much as her, but she can see the bulge in his jeans. Whether it’s the control he has or seeing her like this or the situation as a whole, he’s very turned on right now.

“I want...” She doesn’t know how to phrase it; _I want to suck you_ sounds too vulgar, but so does all of the other alternatives. She just licks her lips slowly at him and he gets it straight away, standing up and stripping off his jeans and boxers in one fluid movement.

Getting him into her mouth while she’s tied is difficult but not impossible; she ends up strained a little toward him, her head turned to the side, while he kneels on the bed and leans over her, holding the bed head for support. Then it’s good; he can even thrust into her mouth a little without slipping out and does so, fingers working in her hair, not quite holding her head still so he can out-and-out fuck her mouth, but almost. The thought alone that maybe he’ll do that one day has her whimpering, and she rolls her eyes up to see an almost gentle smile on his face.

“ _Very_ good girl.”

He withdraws from her sooner than she would like but goes straight for the lube, letting it warm in his palm before dragging one slick finger along her cleft. Maya moves up against his hand and Stuart smacks her ass. “No. You’ll get what I’m going to give you when I’m ready.”

“Oh, God, _Stuart_...”

He really does have very deft fingers; he works her open as though he’s done it hundreds of times before instead of just a few. He’s infuriatingly slow about it, too, teasing her for a long time with one finger before adding a second.

“Please! Stuart, more!”

He smacks her ass again and then moves around on the bed. Maya cranes her neck to see him kneeling beside her, his free hand idly stroking his cock.

“You’ll get more when I’m ready to give it to you.” He looks down at her with dark eyes and then moves to straddle her hips, his cock a hard hot weight pressing between her thighs, rubbing there as he continues stretching her. “If I want to put that plug of yours in you and just get myself off instead, I will.”

Maya voices another wordless moan and her hands curl into tight fists.

He takes pity on her at last. She knew he would. He drives into her, slick and smooth, in one continuous motion, rocking deep into her, bracing himself with his hands to begin with and then lowering himself down until he’s lying with his chest rubbing against the back of her deep red shirt. The fabric feels good moving over her skin; it probably feels amazing to him. Judging from the sounds he’s making, it probably _all_ feels amazing.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” she manages to gasp, and he bites the back of her neck in a decidedly unquiet manner. One hand snakes under her throat to tug lightly on the collar ring.

“ _You’re_ not quiet. You’re never quiet. How much noise can you make for me, Maya? Go on. Be as loud as you can.”

It turns out she can be loud enough for the neighbors to bang on the wall with what sounds like a shoe, after which she dials it back a little. It doesn’t put Stuart off, though; if anything he seems to be getting off on the idea of knowing someone can hear them, and she remembers how quick he was to take to the idea of fooling around in the store. (If “bending her over the counter and fucking her” counts as “fooling around”. She suspects it goes beyond that.)

“Exhibitionist,” she says.

“I like to know people like my art,” Stuart says as solemnly as he can manage given the current circumstances in which they find themselves, and Maya manages not to crack up purely because he’s still got his hand on her collar. Besides, he _is_ just as thorough about this as he is about his art: sketching out her body with his hands and then filling in all the painstaking little details one bit at a time.

Maya comes with Stuart’s hand still possessively holding her collar; comes a second time when he comes inside her, to her and his surprise both. Despite the condom they make a mess of the blanket, and neither of them cares. Stuart only rests a few seconds after coming before pulling out, sending a slow burn along worn nerves, and moving to untie Maya’s arms first. It’s only when she moves them down that she realizes how tense her shoulders got. He unties her ankles, drops the satin strips back in the drawer, and ditches the condom in the bathroom trash before returning to rub her shoulders back to life.

“I take it you enjoyed that,” he says.

“Mmmm... very much so.”

“It did make me wonder what it would be like to be on the receiving end.”

Maya turns her head fast and catches his blush. Well, of course, why not? They’ve experimented more than she would have ever expected in these few short weeks, and being straight doesn’t mean he’s immune to curiosity.

“I’m sure we could arrange something.”

“Um, yeah.”

“There’s always that plug of mine that you mentioned...”

“You’re evil, Maya.”

“At least you’d know where it’s been.”

Stuart flops down on his back and keeps rubbing her shoulders with one hand. “Can you – I know this sounds weird, but I could use a hug right now. I – that was really—”

“I know,” Maya says. She doesn’t quite know, not from his end of things, but she can feel the drop from the heights of pleasure herself, and he’s invested a lot of emotions tonight. She rolls onto her side, not minding the wet spot, and pulls him into her arms, kissing the top of his head. They lie together for a long while. Maya ignores the stickiness on her thighs as best as she can, rubbing Stuart’s back in long, slow strokes.

“Next time some woman tries to kiss you, you remember tonight and what I’ll do to you if I find out,” Stuart murmurs.

“If that’s what I get for being bad, maybe I should do it more often.”

His hand comes down stingingly hard on her backside. “If it’s not a real punishment, I’ll find something that is.”

“This relationship’s getting hardcore,” Maya says drowsily.

“It’s not too much, is it? I mean, I’m not overdoing it, am I?”

“No. Shush. I like it when you’re controlling.”

“As long as you don’t mind that it’s not all the time.”

“Stuart. _I don’t care_. As long as it’s with you.”

“For as long as you’ll have me.”

“For as long as you’ll put up with me,” Maya volleys back.

They finally, reluctantly, get up. Maya balls the blanket up and drops it in the dirty laundry basket while Stuart showers, and Stuart puts the new blanket on while Maya showers. She quickly checks her phone before going to bed; Bernadette got her message and wished her a safe trip home. If only she knew what Maya had gone home to. Maya can’t keep the slightly dizzy smile off her face.

“What’s so funny?” Stuart asks as she comes to bed.

“Bernie texted me to say safe trip home. I was just thinking if she knew what I came home to, she would’ve been better off warning me to be safe _here_.”

“I didn’t overdo it, did I? That’s why I wanted us to have a safeword, I didn’t want to go too far...”

Maya hugs him fiercely tight. “ _No_. It was fine. Better than fine. You made me come _twice_ , Stuart. I’ve never had that happen before.”

“Well, I’ll just have to try to beat the record, then.” He’s gone from fretful to smug in the blink of an eye. Maya rolls her eyes at him and switches off the bedside lamp.

“You’re really okay?” he asks in the dark.

“I’m really okay.”

There’s a pause; she can tell it’s a pause and not just silence because she can hear his breathing stop for a second like he’s about to say something.

“Maya?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

And there it is.

“I love you too, Stuart.”

They’ve been saying it in a hundred thousand ways since the morning she walked into his store with coffee and muffins and helped him clean up the mess after the Warlords debacle; this is the first time they’ve said it in so many words, and it’s anyone’s guess as to which of them is holding the other tightest.

 

**Then (October 2010): Learning**

Raj has a Fetlife profile, although it’s not until later that she’ll change her screen name to _myohmaya_. For now she’s just _rajya_ ; her profile photo is of the planet Venus, which is the planet linked to her star sign. She feels like it’s appropriate. She lurks around different groups and threads for a couple of weeks before getting up the nerve to say _Hi, my name is Rajya, and I’m pretty sure I’m trans_ in one of the MtF threads.

She gets a veritable mountain of replies, some rude, some dismissive, but mostly supportive, and that’s how she meets Sarah. Sarah not only replies to her in-thread but also private messages her. She gets private messages from a few other people – Danielle and Janet are super supportive; others are just a little too nosy for her liking and she politely disregards their more intimate questions.

They progress quickly from exchanging messages to Skyping. Sarah lives in Minnesota so they have to work around the time difference, but it’s more than worth it to be able to talk to someone who understands. Like Raj, Sarah is a later in life transitioner; unlike Raj she’s had a good few years to come to terms with her identity, and the fact that Sarah’s done it gives Raj hope.

 _You have to come out to your friends. Now that you know the truth, you need to know who’s going to support you and who won’t_ , Sarah says on chat one day.

_I’m just scared, because what if I’m wrong?_

_I can’t say for sure, because everyone’s different, but I’ve never see anyone change their mind from the point you’ve reached._

_Fair enough._

But it’s still going to be some time before Maya feels comfortable coming out to anyone, barring her therapist (who she finds with help from the girls) and sort of her first waxer (ditto). The guys occasionally make comments about how her hair needs trimming – okay, not so much the guys as Penny, who offers to do it herself and even though Raj has been drinking she’s reduced to a mute shake of the head. She gets rid of her sideburns, though, and one day takes the razor to her underarms, ending up with more than a few scratches but nothing she can’t learn to live with. She’s just glad she doesn’t have all that much body hair, and her waxer does her chest without comment. After a while the hairs come in finer and finer until they’re barely there at all.

“You’re a lucky girl,” her waxer, Johanna, comments. “Not everyone who comes to me ends up with such good results. They usually have to get laser hair removal or electrolysis.”

“I heard laser’s no good for dark skin.”

“I have to admit you’re one of the few Indian women I’ve treated. I hear there’s a whole subculture in India for trans people – third gender or something? Is that right?” Raj nods. “But you’re not one of them, are you?”

“No. I’m just a trans woman. I’m not _hijra_. Some of them are trans women but a lot of them are kind of in between.”

“I wish I could go there. I bet I’d get a lot of work.”

“You can’t leave me!” Raj says with mock fear, and they both laugh.

 

It’s only a week later that Johanna announces that she’s moving to Canada. _Back_ to Canada, actually; her work visa has expired and she has to go home. She refers Raj to another waxer, but she’s not taking on new clients, and so Raj has to go hunting on her own.

The new waxer is rougher than Johanna, not as talkative, and when she pushes Raj’s skirt up and gets a glimpse of the bulge in Raj’s underwear, she crosses her arms and shakes her head.

“Get out.”

Raj, lying there with still-hot wax all over her left knee and shin, barely manages a “What?” before the woman grabs her arm and jerks her up off the table.

“ _Out_. I don’t work for deviants.”

Raj grabs her handbag and runs, ignoring the woman yelling that she hasn’t paid. She stops at the bottom of the stairs and yells, “If you don’t work for deviants you’re not getting any of my deviant money,” and then bolts.

She desperately wishes she could go to Howard’s and tell him all about it, but Howard doesn’t know yet. She has to settle for going home and getting onto Skype with Danielle, who’s the most militant feminist of her trans friends. She knows she can tell Danielle and within five minutes there’ll be rants up online telling people to avoid the relevant waxing studio. Plus it’s always nice talking to Danielle; she’s Chinese-American and one of the few non-white trans women Raj knows. It’s not that she feels completely distanced from the white trans women she’s met – especially not Sarah, who has now called her “sister” once or twice – but there’s a certain amount of difference in coming from a non-white cultural background that it’s easier to find equal ground at times with Danielle.

“ _Gun_ _ta_ _jwo_ _lu_. You’ll find someone better than that.”

Raj does not comment on Danielle’s language; Danielle has freely admitted that she picks up a lot of her favorite phrases from _Firefly_.

“You should tell your friends,” Danielle says. “I know it’s hard, but having people there for you in person’s so much better than just online.”

“You sound like Sarah. And my therapist.”

“That’s because we know what we’re talking about,” Danielle says smugly.

Raj can’t really argue with that. “Got any tips on how to get cold wax off?” she asks instead.

“Just keep picking. Sorry, _mei-mei_.”

Raj is so pleased to be called little sister by Danielle, who’s a year or so older, that she doesn’t mind as much about scraping the rest of the wax off with her fingernails, which are at least long enough at present to make some real progress.

“This is why I don’t want to come out to my friends,” she says, leg stretched out on the couch, wincing every so often as she picks and scratches, dropping bits of wax onto a tissue.

“I know. But at least they’re less likely to pour hot wax on you.”

“Yeah, but what if they start hating me?”

“Then they’re not worth the effort. If they’re going to hate you for who you are, and this is who you are, Rajya, then either they accept you or they can _gai_ _cocknif_ _en_ _yom_.”

“That’s not Mandarin.”

“No, it’s Yiddish for _go shit in the ocean_. I learned it from a Stephen King book.” Danielle is a pop culture sponge.

They talk a little while longer, Danielle busily keying away at reviews slamming the waxing salon on several websites, especially those where warnings about transphobic places are gathered (sadly, the lists are long and varied), and then Raj excuses herself to go and see if a hot shower will help get the last of the wax off.

She looks at herself naked in the mirror. Her breasts are mere bumps that she sometimes pads out. Her cock is small, hanging there uselessly in its nest of trimmed hair; the hormones have done more work there than up top, she thinks. Her legs are half fuzzy and still partly covered with dried-on wax. She still only has fairly short hair, but at least her Adam’s apple isn’t prominent. She has wide hips and shoulders but not as wide as some, and her waist is developing a nice little inward curve. She still has her abdominal muscle definition, too, which she quite likes considering the effort it took to get it.

In the end, though, even though she likes most of what she sees, it’s the last time she looks at herself completely naked for a long while. It’s just not safe to look, not when it makes her feel even more body dysphoric than ever.


	8. chapter seven: you could leave your mouth talking and follow me out the window

**Now (March 2011): Offering**

Maya calls Sarah via Skype the night after Amy tells her about Faisal’s offer, Stuart temporarily banished to the bedroom (his decision).

“I’ve got a kind of weird offer for you,” she starts.

“Please don’t tell me you want a threesome with me and Lizzie. You’d be the second person to ask tonight, and you know I’m not interested.”

“No, no. Basically Amy wants another person to talk to for her thesis who she’s not so emotionally tied to, and she thought you’d be a good choice because you’re further along in your transition and you started transitioning while you were already in a relationship. She wants to know more about how that’s affected you in a brain-wavy kind of way.”

“Well, I guess that would be okay, but when and where exactly was she planning on doing her tests? You can’t conduct an EEG through the internet.”

“Oh, she thought we could do it in Philadelphia when we go down there for our surgical consult with Dr. Rumer,” Maya says as offhandedly as she can.

Sarah’s eyes light up, and then the light dims. “I’m not even close to affording the plane trip, let alone the surgery yet. I’d really like to help your friend out, but...”

“She did say there’d be compensation for your time.”

“Maya, what aren’t you telling me?”

“You remember I mentioned Faisal, Amy’s fiancé from Saudi Arabia?”

“Yes, he’s funding your surgery.” Sarah’s hand goes to her mouth and the light comes back into her eyes. “No, Maya. You’re not telling me...”

“Yes, I am. You’ve been specially selected for an all expenses paid trip to Vaginaville.”

Sarah starts laughing and crying at the same time. Lizzie dashes into the room, Sarah explains what’s going on, and Lizzie leans in and plants a big kiss right on the web camera.

“You have no idea how much this means to me. To both of us,” Sarah says when she can talk properly again.

“A lot, obviously.”

“It means everything,” Lizzie says. “I love Sarah, but we’ll both be so much happier when she’s had the surgery. She’s been waiting for years for the opportunity and it just hasn’t happened. There’s always something else coming up that requires money, like school.”

“I have to admit I’m pretty overwhelmed that Faisal offered to fund _my_ surgery. Getting yours as well is such a bonus. I just wish he could afford to pay for everyone I know who wants it.”

“Well, I’m not going to say no just because he can’t pay for everyone. There are times to be selfish, and this is one of them.”

“Definitely,” Maya says, not knowing that she’s got a choice ahead of her that will rely entirely on her own selfishness, or lack thereof.

They talk for a few more minutes, Sarah making very little in the way of sense, and then disconnect. Maya hangs her headset over the top of her monitor and then goes into the bedroom, where she finds Stuart waiting for her, stretched out on the bed reading the latest _Batman_ comic.

“It sounds like she accepted,” he says with a smile.

“Oh, she did. Very loudly. Now we just have to organize a time where we can fly down for the surgical consult, and after that find out when we can actually book in for the surgery itself.”

“I wish I could come with you, but I can’t leave the store.”

“I know.” Stuart has already made this apology several times. “Lizzie can’t come either. It’s okay. You just get to organize the welcome home party.”

“We’ll have to have one when you come back from the consult and one when you come back from the surgery, just to be safe.”

“Costumes?”

“Of course. Always costumes. They’re practically a requirement around Sheldon.”

“Can we have it in the store?” She was originally joking about the party, but now she thinks it’s not a bad idea.

“I think maybe it would be better if we found somewhere with a bit more security than just a Darth Vader standee,” Stuart says, and just like that the conversation has gone sour. She doesn’t know if he’s thinking of the debacle on the day of the Warlords tournament, but it’s a fairly safe bet that he is.

“Let’s worry about it once we’ve worked out when the consultation’s actually going to be,” Maya suggests, and Stuart looks relieved.

 

After some phone calls to Philadelphia and more Skyping with Sarah and texts to Amy and discussions with Faisal about funding the plane trips, they finally settle on mid-May for the surgical consult. Maya and Sarah decide to keep quiet about it on Fetlife until after the fact; they’re very aware that talking about having their surgeries funded by some Middle Eastern prince (which Amy assures them he is) will make some people insanely jealous, and besides they’ll probably get accused of lying.

The planning only hits one major hitch, and that’s that Faisal wants Amy to break up with Sheldon.

“I don’t understand it. Amy’s a girl, and she’s my friend, but she’s not my girlfriend,” Sheldon says. They’re gathered at Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment playing Munchkin, or at least the original four of them are. Amy, Bernadette, and Penny are out looking for bridesmaid dresses. Maya is not going to be one of Bernie’s bridesmaids; instead, she’s going to be Howard’s best woman, and as such she gets to shop for her own dress. Howard’s accepted that he’s not going to get her into a tux. She’s done some Googling for tuxedo dresses but most of the hits that have come up look more like something one would wear to a Halloween party – or a fetish ball – than to a wedding.

“I don’t think Faisal sees it that way, somehow,” Howard says, shuffling the deck and dealing out two door cards and two treasure cards to all of them. “I think any man his fiancée spends a significant amount of time with is probably a threat.”

“You don’t mind that Bernadette spends time with me and Leonard,” Sheldon says.

“Not quite the same thing, Sheldon. It’s more like Priya not liking me to hang out with Penny,” Leonard puts in.

“It’s not like that at all. It’s an irrational fear, and a ridiculous thing to want.”

“So is Priya not wanting Leonard to be alone with Penny,” Maya says rolling the die to see if she gets to go first. Well, she won’t be, unless nobody beats a three.

“Have you talked to her about that?”

“Repeatedly.”

“And what did she say?”

“She says unless you have the balls to stand up to her she’s going to keep things the way they are,” Maya says nonchalantly.

“She did _not_.”

“She did too.”

“Guys, please,” Howard breaks in, “sorry, guys and gal, can we just play this game?” He’s just rolled a six, which means he gets to go first. He draws a card and immediately gets hit with a curse that makes him lose his Spudded Leather Armor.

“What it’s more like,” Maya says after some thought, “is if Stuart told me not to see Howard anymore.” She examines her cards and puts down the Leather Bikini as armor.

Howard goes bright red. “How is it anything like that?”

“Well, you _did_ kiss me, and if he thought you might do it again and banned me from seeing you, that’s what Faisal banning Amy from seeing Sheldon would be like. Except they’ve never kissed.”

“Maya, I thought we weren’t going to talk about that!”

Leonard’s sitting there gaping. Even Sheldon looks a little knocked out of orbit by the news.

“Why not? It was months ago,” Maya says lightly. “It’s a relevant example.”

“A relevant example that does _not_ leave this room, and I don’t mean someone should bring Bernie in here and tell her.”

“You mean you didn’t tell her?”

“Of course not!”

“I think that’s a pretty big thing to keep from your future wife, Howard,” Leonard says, frowning.

“Fine, fine, I’ll talk to her tonight so she can return the bridesmaid dresses tomorrow without worrying about the store thinking she’s used them.” Howard glares down at his cards; it’s obvious he’d rather be glaring at Maya. The next round or so of the game goes by in awkward silence, broken only by their voices as they read off the details on the cards.

“She’s not going to split up with you over this,” Leonard says while Howard’s valiantly beating up the Potted Plant.

“Oh, shut up, slave boy.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re too afraid of Priya dumping you to stand up to her about seeing your good friend. I don’t think you’ve got any right to give relationship advice.”

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Sheldon says.

“Don’t you start, asexual boy. You don’t even realize when you _have_ a girlfriend.” Howard throws his cards down on the table and stands up abruptly. “I’m out of here.”

“Howard, wait.” Maya rises and Howard spins on his heel and this time he _does_ glare at her, his eyes filled with more spite than she’s ever seen from him.

“Shut up, Raj. Just... shut up.” He walks out of the apartment, slamming the door so hard the bookshelves rattle.

Leonard’s on his feet as well. “I should go after him.”

“No, don’t. I’ll go. I’m the one who opened my stupid mouth.” Maya’s burning with shame but also with anger at being misnamed, and she’s determined to fix this, no matter what it takes.

 

Howard’s standing beside the Vespa, head down, fiddling with his phone. Maya suspects that maybe he’s doing it to give one of them time to chase after him and apologize or something. Well, he’s only sort of right.

“Howard?”

He turns and gives her a very fake smile. “Maya.”

“Thanks for getting my name right this time.”

“No, thank _you_ for outing me as a cheater to all my friends.”

Maya sighs. “Howard. If a kiss counted as cheating, Stuart could’ve dumped me three times by now, and he hasn’t. Bernadette’s not going to kill you over it. She might be mad for a while, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the relationship, unless you carry on about it.”

Howard sighs and sits down on the edge of the long garden wall that runs along the front of the apartment building. Maya hesitates, and then sits beside him. “I’m just scared of screwing this up, you know? Bernie’s the best thing that happened to me, and I don’t want to lose her.”

“You won’t lose her, dude. She doesn’t shut up about you when we go out for drinks. I have to ask her to stop before things get TMI.”

“They couldn’t be more TMI than anything I tell you.”

“You’ve obviously never been on a girls’ night out.”

“I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall,” Howard admits.

“I don’t think flies can hear all that well. You’d be better off planting a bug in her handbag. Don’t actually do that,” Maya adds hastily. Howard snickers, and they lapse into silence for a moment.

“I’m not coming back inside tonight,” Howard says.

“That’s okay, as long as you know nobody’s judging you. Leonard’s probably kissed someone he shouldn’t before, and Sheldon’s clueless about relationships, so he can’t say anything.”

“I just... why’d you have to say it?”

“It just slipped out. That’s _all_. Why’d you have to call me ‘Raj’? It’s not my name.”

“I was angry. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, though. It was an accident.”

“I’ve been out for months now.” Maya picks at a loose thread on her skirt; a dozen seed beads bounce onto the pavement, and she hastily lets it go. “I thought it was enough time for you to be used to ‘Maya’.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it should be, but it’s kind of not. I knew Raj for a long time. It’s hard to look at him and see Maya in his place.”

“Don’t you _ever_ call me ‘him’ again,” Maya says. “Not even like that. Just... don’t.”

“All _right_. God, Maya. I just feel like I lost someone I thought I knew everything about.”

“You still know everything important about me. You know I hate Indian food and love Thai and Chinese. You know my favorite color’s jade green and I’m thinking about getting a belly button ring. It shouldn’t matter what my name is or what gender I am. I can still be your best friend.”

“Yeah, but it’s still different to having a male best friend. You get to go on girls’ nights out now. You’re one of them. I don’t have a close guy friend anymore. Leonard and Sheldon just aren’t the same.” He gives her a wounded look, and suddenly Maya’s pissed off.

“Well, guess what? I’m not going to turn around and go back to being Raj just because you need a male BFF. Talk to Leonard and Sheldon more. Hell, try talking to Stuart once in a while – it’s not like he gets to go out on girls’ nights with me just because he’s my boyfriend, and you two have a lot in common if you’d just _try_ being friends instead of distancing yourself from him because he’s not one of the Fantastic Four. This is who I am now whether you like it or not, and if you don’t like it, then you can get screwed.”

Howard’s looking flabbergasted at this outburst. If he says one word of protest Maya’s going to shove his Vespa into the gutter and refuse to help him pick it up.

“I...” He clears his throat and tries again. “Maya, I don’t want you to change. I mean, I want you to be Maya. I want you to be _happy_. I’m just still getting used to it because it’s a big change after a long time of things just being, you know, the way they were.”

“I know. Believe me, I know.”

“I’m sorry I made you mad.” He gives her a contrite look.

“I’m sorry I told everyone you kissed me. I still think you should tell Bernadette, though.”

“I will. I don’t want her to find out from Leonard or someone.”

“You think he’d tell her?”

“No, but I do think he’d tell Priya, and she’d tell Penny, and Penny can’t keep her mouth shut.”

“It’s funny how close Priya and Penny actually are. All that stuff she says about not wanting Leonard and Penny alone together’s just a front. But you’d be surprised how good Penny is at keeping secrets when she really wants to.”

“Yeah,” says Howard, “but would she really want to keep Bernie from knowing about you and me?”

“There was no ‘you and me’! There was a half-assed make-out one night and that’s all there was to it!” Maya’s a quarter annoyed and three-quarters amused at how much Howard’s blowing this out of proportion.

“That’s not quite true.” Howard’s gone really quiet all of a sudden.

“What?”

“I said, that’s not quite true.”

“Why?”

“Because... um. God. I was kind of attracted to you before... you know, before.” He gestures at her skirt.

“You should’ve said something!”

“You would’ve laughed.”

“No, I would have shared a bed with you every night in the Arctic instead of just the time the heat went out.”

Howard makes a funny choking noise and then gives up on trying to hold it in and just laughs. “Oh... my... God. Really?”

“Really,” Maya confirms.

“Oh, man. What a missed opportunity.” He sneaks an arm around her shoulders. “Shame it’s too late now.”

“Way too late.” Maya pushes his arm off her shoulders. “So don’t even think about it.”

Howard heaves a sigh and stands up; Maya notes it’s with that certain awkwardness that suggests he’s got a hard-on. Lovely. She doesn’t know whether she’s flattered (maybe a little) or disgusted at him being sleazy considering the discussion they’ve been having (a lot). “Guess I’d better go home to my fiancée and make confession.”

“If only you were Catholic instead of Jewish. She could probably flagellate you or something.”

“That could be interesting,” Howard says thoughtfully.

Maya gives him a little push in the direction of the Vespa. “ _Go_. I’ll go back in and tell the others you’re all right.” She hesitates. “You _are_ all right, aren’t you?”

“I feel like I said everything wrong tonight.”

Maya can’t argue with that, so she just lets him go, watching the Vespa’s taillight fade and then turn the corner as he heads for Bernadette’s. Then she goes upstairs, where Sheldon and Leonard have considerately halted the game to wait for her return.

“How’d it go?” Leonard asks.

“It could’ve been worse. It could’ve been better, too, but it definitely could’ve been worse.”

“Huh. Okay. So, do we get to loot his cards now he’s gone? I want his Loaded Die.”

So that’s the end of that, if Leonard’s not going to ask her about the whole Howard kissing her thing; if it gets back to Bernadette via Priya, it’ll be precious little information, and she can only hope that Howard’s honest with Bernadette before the grapevine gets going.

 

The next day at lunch they sit together in the cafeteria like normal and Howard opens the conversation by saying, “She didn’t kill me.”

“Well, that’s self-evident, seeing as you’re still here,” Sheldon says.

“She did say she wished I’d said something sooner. Then she said she’s going to be grilling Maya next time she sees her.” Howard gives Maya a little smirk.

“That’s if she can remember to do it after a couple of drinks,” Maya retorts.

“Oh, believe me, if Bernie decides to hold a grudge about something, she won’t let go. She’s like a dog with a bone. Like one of those little chihuahuas with a squeaky toy.”

“I don’t think comparing your fiancée to a dog’s necessarily the best idea,” Leonard says.

“Oops.” Howard digs in to his pot roast – alleged pot roast, anyway – and there’s a comfortable silence for a few minutes as all four of them start eating. Leonard scrapes the gravy off the slices of meat with the side of his fork, blanches, and scrapes it back on so he can’t see what he’s eating. Maya concentrates on eating her peas without dropping any down her blouse. It’s a little lower cut than she would usually wear to work, but after last night she needs the reassurance of her femininity. Unfortunately, even her relatively small amount of cleavage can be a food catcher if she spills, and trying to remove peas from one’s bra is never dignified.

“She’s not really mad at me, is she?”

Howard shrugs. “I don’t know. She didn’t seem all that mad at _me_ , so probably not. My advice is just nod along if she starts yelling and then apologize about five times.”

“You’re a great relationship guru, Howard,” Leonard says.

“Hey, it works for my woman. How do _you_ resolve arguments?”

“Usually? Sex.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that,” Maya says, trying very hard not to think about Leonard and Priya in bed together. She doesn’t have much luck – she’s heard too much through the wall when Priya used to live with her to be able to dismiss those thoughts entirely, plus she’s read the _Kama Sutra_. And seen _Star Trek_. And – she shakes her head at Leonard and Leonard just grins a little and shuts up.

“If you ask me—” Sheldon begins.

“—we didn’t—”

“Shut up, Wolowitz. If you ask me, the only way to resolve any argument is through discussion. Merely caving in and apologizing isn’t a resolution, it’s just smoothing things over until the next time.”

“What about sex?”

“No, thank you, Leonard.”

Maya drops her fork. Did Sheldon just make a _joke_? About _sex_? It seems he did; there’s a smile waiting around the corners of his mouth. Howard chokes on his Mountain Dew, and Leonard literally snorts a pea out of his nose.

“Bazinga. Howard, do you require the Heimlich maneuver?”

 

They’ve gone their separate ways after lunch, but just as Maya gets back to her and Sheldon’s office Howard calls her cell phone.

“Some asshole’s wrapped my computer in duct tape.”

“I’ll be there in a minute. I’ll get Siebert on the way.”

But Siebert’s out of his office at a conference, so Maya has to go down to engineering alone, wondering all the way which of the people she passes in the corridors could be the one to have attacked Howard.

Howard’s got two pairs of scissors out and has already unwrapped the mouse. There’s a soda can taped in the DVD drive. Maya stops him and takes photos on her phone to send to Siebert before they go any further. Then she takes the second pair of scissors and starts snipping through the tape wound around the keyboard, trying to remove it without yanking all the keys out.

“Maybe I should move to Minnesota,” she grumbles. “Wasn’t anyone around when this happened?”

“Yeah. Whoever did it.”

“Helpful.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just pissed off.”

“Maybe it would be safer if I ate lunch with Leslie from now on. I doubt anyone would dare pull this kind of shit with her. She’d laser their balls off.”

“You think someone did this because I eat _lunch_ with you?”

“Well, yeah. Like they trashed my and Sheldon’s office, and the Comics Center. It’ll probably be Leonard next.” Maya accidentally yanks too hard on the tape and pulls several keys out of the keyboard. “Damn it!”

“Wait, what happened at the Comics Center?”

“I thought I told you guys.” Maya thinks back. “No, wait, maybe I only told Sheldon. Someone egged and TPed the place.”

Howard winces. “That’s so out of season.”

“That wasn’t exactly my main concern.”

“You don’t mean it about not eating lunch with us, do you?”

Maya shrugs. “I don’t want you guys having to deal with this... this bullshit. It’s not fair to expect you to go through this just because some idiot thinks I’m a freak.”

“You’re not a freak.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, maybe to mundanes you are, but you’re not _really_ a freak.”

“Howard?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up before I wind this duct tape around your mouth.”

 

Eventually Howard’s computer is unwrapped and, except for a few smears on the monitor, apparently undamaged. Even so, Howard opens the case up before he tries starting the computer back up, just to make sure that the contents of the soda can aren’t in there.

Maya carefully deposits the can and the duct tape in a plastic bag. “Think the police can lift prints off this?” she asks.

“Not if the asshole wore gloves. Which he probably did. Maybe Siebert will let us get a camera down here as well.”

“We need more security around all our offices. I just don’t know...” Maya pauses to zip-lock the bag shut. “I don’t know how to keep asking him for stuff. It’s just... I’m not used to needing help like this.”

“So let me ask for you. I mean, this isn’t just about you anymore... this constitutes a breach of security. If NASA knew people were walking in here whenever they wanted and maybe seeing my work, they’d be pretty darn unimpressed.”

“I don’t think seeing your space shelf is much of a breach of security,” Maya can’t resist needling him, and Howard playfully punches her arm.

“I’ll hang onto this until we can show Siebert.”

“No, leave it here. I’ll take it and show him and ask about getting a camera down here. Or in the corridor, anyway.”

“Thanks. I feel like I’d be nagging him if I went back again.”

“No way. He likes you. He’s kind of acting like you’re his kid who needs protecting.”

“I wish I didn’t.”

Howard reaches for her hand. “Look, Maya, I know it sucks, but please, just accept help when we’re offering it, okay? Siebert’s a good guy. It’s better than having some asshole as the president of the place.”

“True that. It could be Kripke.”

Howard snorts. “Kripke couldn’t be president of his own fan club.”

Maya cracks up and squeezes Howard’s hand. “So true. Hey, did you tell Bernadette the part where you had a crush on me for ages?”

“I didn’t have a _crush_ , I was just _curious_. You know, how guys are supposed to get during college.”

“Yeah, when they’re _freshmen_. Not when they’re engineers in their late twenties.”

“Yeah, like it’s my fault you’re attractive.”

Maya can’t help a pleased blush. Sure, she’s got Stuart, and Howard’s engaged, and they’ve already worked through this once and established that it’s a no-no, but it’s nice to get some external validation from someone other than her boyfriend for a change. Sure, the feedback from her Fet girls is nice, but a little more ego-stroking can’t hurt.

Howard’s thumb moves over the back of her hand. “You know, they have that saying about might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb...” He does the thing where he wiggles his eyebrows that’s meant to be suggestive and just looks stupid.

“Howard, no. Don’t start this again.” Maya pulls her hand away, suddenly wishing his lab weren’t miles away from anywhere else. “We’ve talked about this.”

“All right, all right. I just... like I said, you’re attractive.”

“And you’re _engaged_ , dude. Don’t push it.” She turns on her heel and walks out before anything stupid happens. She’s not exactly scared of Howard, but she’s scared that she might go too far in the name of affirming her attractiveness.

She spends the rest of the day with her head down at her computer, working industriously, and Sheldon, still coasting on the success of his joke at lunchtime, nonetheless realizes she needs some quiet time and doesn’t talk out loud the way he usually does at his whiteboard.

There’s no further reports of anyone screwing around with either Howard or Leonard’s labs. Whoever pulled the duct tape stunt must’ve done it during lunch hour, because as prone to getting lost in time as many academics are, most of the Caltech staff are pretty good about remembering mealtimes. Stuart doesn’t text to say the Comic Center’s been hit again. Maya’s more and more certain that it’s just one person committing a series of spiteful acts and, although that’s still pretty awful, it’s better than a group.

She still feels personally responsible for the others having their stuff messed with, and says as much to Priya when they meet for dinner that night.

“So? There’s nothing you can do about it. Are you really going to give up all your friends just so they won’t get victimized by some idiot who doesn’t get how reality works?”

“I feel like I should. I don’t know, Pri... I don’t want to put them in any danger. Or you. I mean, what if this idiot comes after you next? Or Penny, or Bernie? I think Amy’s probably safer because she works at UCLA, but that might not mean anything to someone who thinks wrapping a computer in duct tape’s a good idea.”

Priya reaches across the table, grabs Maya’s hand, and squeezes it hard. “Maya. Calm down. Normal breaths.”

Maya tries to take normal breaths and ends up dashing to the bathroom to pee instead. Fortunately nobody’s around to watch her go into the women’s bathroom; she still feels self-conscious about doing so in public places. She takes her time washing her hands and then redoing her mascara; it doesn’t need it, but it calms her down to do it anyway.

Priya’s waiting patiently for her at their table, and only the fact that she’s crumbled a breadstick into breadcrumbs gives away her worry. “Are you okay?”

“I am now.” Maya sits back down. “I know I’m probably overreacting. Whoever’s doing this is just a juvenile jackass with too much time on his hands. I’m pretty sure I know who that describes.”

“You still think it’s Kripke?”

Maya nods.

“Then maybe you need to do some spy work. Don’t wait for Siebert to put cameras in. If Howard can mount cameras on remote-controlled trucks, I’m sure he can sneak one into Kripke’s office.” Priya leans back in her chair and gives Maya a satisfied look.

Maya, for her part, is just gaping. “Priya, that’s got to be all kinds of illegal.”

“Who cares? Just don’t mention me when you tell him. I’d like to keep my job.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll make him think he thought of it himself if it comes to that. But Priya... do you really think it’s a good idea?”

“No. It’s a terrible idea and I forbid you to do it.” Priya smiles. “And you should be sure to post someone as a lookout when you don’t do it, too.”

“Have you ever considered the possibility that you’re a little bit crazy?”

“Sometimes. But then again, it helps me deal with Leonard.”

Maya puts her hands over her ears and almost elbows their waiter in the side as he’s setting down her ratatouille. “Lalala, I can’t hear you.”

“Ladies, please,” the waiter remonstrates, as Priya throws half a breadstick at Maya.

“Sorry,” the sisters chorus.

 

After dinner Priya takes the driver’s seat and they head out to a familiar store. Maya hasn’t been back to Anomaly since she got her ears pierced, but she’s been past it, and she gives Priya a curious look as Priya finds a parking space.

“You’re not getting something weird pierced, are you?”

“I’m getting my nose pierced, and you, big sister, are getting your navel done.”

“Oh no, I’m not.”

“Oh yes, you are.” Priya grabs Maya’s arm and pulls her into the store, and Maya doesn’t bother struggling. Truth be told, she’s been thinking about this for a while, has mentioned it at least twice around her friends, and isn’t surprised that Priya’s taking the initiative for her.

There’s a lot more preparation involved than there was for her ears; her ears were simple, left, right, and done. The piercer, whose name is Ruth and who fits every single stereotype of a butch lesbian ever except for the part where she’s got a wedding photo of her and her husband up behind the counter, marks two holes on Maya’s navel and then picks through an assortment of jewelry to find the right surgical steel bar. Then there’s the needle. Maya is not afraid of needles, but she turns her head away anyway as it goes in. The pain is hot and immediate and she wonders how she’s going to manage to get her tattoo. If she ever gets her tattoo. If she doesn’t just pass out and roll off the table right now.

“All done,” Ruth says. “Here, have a drink of water. Sit up slowly. Lean on the wall if it helps.”

The wall does help. The wall is her friend. She’s very glad she had that third glass of wine at dinner. Ruth wipes her navel with a swatch of damp gauze and Maya flinches, slopping water from the plastic cup down her front.

“Hey, easy does it. You’re okay.” Ruth turns to Priya and asks in not quite a whisper, “Is she drunk?”

“Not really,” Priya says unhelpfully.

It’s Priya’s turn next and she gets her nose pierced without so much as closing her eyes. Maya’s still clutching her water like a baby with a sippy cup by the time Priya’s finished.

“I guess I’m driving back to my place, huh? Can you get home from there?”

“I’m fine to drive, I’m just sore,” Maya says, trying not to snap. “This was your idea, remember.”

“You’ll thank me for it when you can wear this,” Priya says, handing her a little box as they make their way out of the store, waving goodbye to Ruth. Maya quickly forgets the pain as she opens the box to find a gold belly bar with a tiny dolphin swinging from it.

“Oh, Pri, it’s beautiful.” She hugs her sister fiercely hard, and Priya hugs her back, holding her close and tight. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Oh, I like enabling you,” Priya says cheerfully.

“I have to admit I don’t mind being enabled.”

“You didn’t exactly run out of the store screaming.”

Maya finds the car keys in her bag and opens the door. “True.”

They talk about inconsequential things on the way back to Priya’s apartment; they’ve managed to find a balance between discussing their relationships and too much information at last, and Maya tells Priya she needs to stop setting rules about Penny for Leonard, and Priya just laughs and says Leonard needs to stand up for himself, and they bicker a little over the roles of men in relationships. Somehow the conversation slides a little toward the TMI side but for once Maya doesn’t mind, admitting a little shyly that she and Stuart are having full sex. Priya doesn’t exactly comment, but she squeezes Maya’s arm and smiles at her.

It’s been a good day on balance, so when Maya opens her apartment door she’s smiling, and calls out, “Hey, honey, I’m home!”

Only silence greets her.

“Stuart?”

There’s a noise from the bathroom, and Maya slams the door and locks it behind herself before running through the living room and bedroom. The bathroom door is shut but she opens it without knocking.

Stuart’s sitting on the edge of the tub, whiter than ever, except for the dark bruising around his left eye. His cheek is split open beneath that eye and the blood’s only just drying to a crust. He’s been sick, mostly in the toilet, and she can see bruises beginning to rise on his wrists as well.

And in spite of all this, he tries to smile at her.

“Hey, Maya.”

“Stuart, my God, what happened?” She falls to her knees beside him, grabbing his hands; they, fortunately, are untouched, save for a little light scratching across the knuckles. He must have tried to fight back at least.

“It was one guy. He jumped me outside the store... kicked my stomach, my ribs...” He draws an obviously painful breath. “Took my phone and my car keys and shoved them through the mail slot so I could see them but not reach them. Took all the cash I had on me, too.” He reaches out and touches her hair. “He called me a fag and I called him a transphobic asshole and he kicked me again and ran.” He coughs and winces. “He didn’t get my shop key, though, so when I could stand up I got my keys back.”

“You _drove_ back here? Like this?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” He gags and Maya holds his head while he vomits into the bathtub. “I didn’t want to go to the hospital in case they wouldn’t call you.”

Maya bursts into tears, but manages to call Leonard anyway.

 

**Then (November 2010-January 2011): Wanting**

Howard curses himself every time he thinks of Raj _that way_. It doesn’t help that Raj has been wearing his hair longer lately and it looks like it would be wonderfully soft, and okay, maybe he’s felt some level of attraction to his friend for a while now, but it shouldn’t keep slipping from friendship into desire.

It’s annoying. One minute he’s in the bathtub with Katee Sackhoff, and the next he’s in bed with Raj, in the fricking Arctic Circle on the night the heat went out, and Raj is giving him an impenetrable look with those dark eyes and then going down on him as if he’s been doing it all his life. No matter how hard Howard tries to divert those fantasies away, back to Katee and champagne and chocolates, once they get going he can’t stop. It’s not always the Arctic Circle, either; sometimes they’re at _work_ , Raj coming into his lab and closing the door and the two of them exchanging handjobs fast and hard, desire heightened by the fear of discovery.

It’s not like he has weird fantasies about all his friends. He tried, once, to think about Leonard in the same way to see if it did anything, and instantly lost his erection. It’s not men. It’s just Raj. Raj and his untamed curls. Raj and his stupid pretty eyes.

And, eventually, Rajya and _her_ stupid pretty skirts, and tops that show off her new cleavage, and bangles that jingle on her wrists and make Howard wonder what sort of noise they’d make if she was jerking him off. One night he steals a couple from the stack on her coffee table (there are like two dozen of them, so he thinks she won’t notice), and slips them over his own wrist that night in bed, and he doesn’t even bother pretending to start thinking about Katee or Bernadette or anyone he _should_ be fantasizing about.

When he finally bites the bullet and tries kissing her it’s everything he’d hoped for. Her lips are soft and yielding under his; she pulls him close and he can for a second pretend that he’s not doing totally the wrong thing.

But then she pushes him away and speaks Bernadette’s name like a rune of warding, and Howard leaves her, going for a long ride before he gets home, trying to clear his head.

It never quite clears all the way, though, and even when he’s well and truly reconciled to the idea of being engaged and eventually married to Bernadette, thoughts of _what if we_ and _maybe we could_ keep coming up in his mind. He considers suggesting a threesome, but has no idea how Bernadette would take to that idea, especially now she’s accepted Maya as one of the girls.

What kicks those thoughts to the curb is when Maya and Stuart get together. It’s not just the fact that this takes her off the market – he thinks that if he really tried he could at least kiss her again without getting in too much trouble – but the fact that she’s so clearly head over heels about the guy that makes him back off. He has slight misgivings about the fact that Stuart’s older than they are and yet still pretty clearly a novice on the relationship front, but as they days go by and the couple just keep getting closer, he has to put those worries aside.

But Maya just keeps getting curvier and prettier and she won’t quite leave his mind entirely, no matter how much he tries. When he’s with Bernadette he’s only ever with Bernadette, but when he’s alone he sometimes imagines dark curls between his fingers, and Maya’s soft lips against his mouth and other places, and he hates himself a little more every time he does it, but each fantasy nonetheless ends in a hard orgasm that leaves him washed up and wrung out.

He wishes he could stop, but it’s like any addiction; unlike most addictions, though, there’s no twelve-step program that can help him. All he can do is fight the feelings each time they rise and hope that someday, somehow, they’ll stop.


	9. chapter eight: everybody’s got the same insecurities as you

**Now (March 2011): Moving (III)**

The hospital isn’t as bad as they’d both feared. They have to spend a long time waiting in Emergency, Stuart with a bucket on his lap just in case, but he’s not sick again. Maya sits beside him holding his hand, and a few people give them strange looks, but only one or two people give them actual dirty looks. Leonard fills out the paperwork, asking Stuart questions in a low voice.

Stuart’s midsection is mottled with bruising. There’s nothing broken, though he’s still got very sore ribs. He gets a proper ice pack for his eye; thankfully, the cut below it doesn’t need stitches. There’s a nasty bump on the back of his head that needs another ice pack, which Maya holds for him. There’s a police report to give after the doctor sees Stuart, the officer sounding almost bored as he takes down the details.

“Do you have a security camera at the store?” he asks.

“Yeah, but the guy was wearing a ski mask and all black.” Stuart looks uncertainly at Maya. “I don’t really remember much else. My head hit the pavement pretty hard.”

“We’ll take a look at the tape, but it sounds like your assailant came prepared.” He clicks his pen repeatedly. “We can at least put this with your other reports and start some interviews, but I wouldn’t hang all your hopes on it.” He stops clicking his pen and rises to go. “Get some rest and don’t go back to work unless the doc says it’s okay.”

“Doc says no way,” the man in question says. “Not for at least a week.”

“Right,” Stuart says. Maya knows he’s lying. For one thing, the books he’s ordered are due to arrive soon, and for another, he can’t afford to take the time off work.

They leave the hospital in silence. Leonard drives them home, kisses Maya on the cheek, and leaves them alone. Maya sends out a few texts letting her friends know what happened; to her surprise, Stuart sends a few messages as well.

“Who’re you telling?”

“Larry, Sweatpants... Wil.”

“Wil _Wheaton_?”

“He _is_ my friend, Maya.”

“It’s okay. I’m just a little surprised.”

Stuart looks down at his phone. “He says hi and he hopes we’ll both be okay.”

“ _Are_ you going to be okay?”

“Eventually. I just... I need to get some sleep.” He gets off the couch with a flinch of pain in spite of the painkillers currently circulating in his system.

When they’re in bed, Stuart’s restless, unable to find a comfortable position. Maya wishes she knew how to help him. She feels angry and ashamed at the same time; he wouldn’t be like this if not for her.

“Maybe we should break up.” Her own voice sounds dead to her ears.

“I...” Stuart coughs. “I don’t want to.”

“And I don’t want to see you get beaten up again because of me.”

“Some asshole with a grudge isn’t a reason for us to end this.”

“You’d be safer.”

There’s silence from Stuart’s side of the bed, then: “If you really want me to go, I will. But I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want you to, but...”

The covers on Stuart’s side of the bed shift as he stands up. “Okay. Fine. Okay. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”

“No, don’t do that. I will.” Maya gets up and waits until he’s gotten back into bed before she leans down and kisses his forehead. “You should have the bed. You’ll be more comfortable.”

“I’d be more comfortable if I didn’t have bruised ribs.”

Maya can feel the tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, fleeing to the living room and managing to get settled on the couch with a throw rug over herself before she starts crying.

They pass that night in their own separate miseries, and neither of them sleep particularly well.

 

The next morning, Stuart packs up some of his stuff into his car – he never sold his car even at the worst of times, in case he’d had to start living in it – and gets the air mattress out of storage. They don’t say much.

“Guess it’s back to the Hotel Comic Center for me,” he tries to joke. “You know what they say...”

“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

“Yeah.” Stuart goes quiet, standing in what was their apartment doorway. “I love you, Maya.”

“And I love you too, Stuart. But this is the only way to keep you safe.”

He kisses her once, quickly, on the lips. Then he’s gone without another word.

 

Maya goes into work that day feeling as though her heart is literally so heavy it will drop out of her chest. She’s irritable when she can’t focus on her work, and Sheldon asks her what’s wrong.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Maya, I have a working knowledge of everything important the universe contains. I think I _would_ understand.”

“Stuart and I broke up.” Maya bursts into tears again.

Sheldon gives her a horrified yet sympathetic look, and calls Leonard and Howard. He does manage to give her an awkward shoulder rub while he’s waiting for them to arrive, but it’s plain, as she expected, that he doesn’t really understand at all.

“I don’t get it. Why did you have to break up?” Howard asks when he arrives.

“For his safety.” Maya explains what happened and Howard looks apoplectic with fury.

“If it was Kripke, I’m going to kill him to death with his own robot.”

“As opposed to killing him to pain?” Leonard asks, and the stupidity of the exchange makes Maya laugh through the tears.

“He didn’t think it was Kripke. He said he thought it was a skinnier guy. Not as muscular.” She looks sidelong at Howard. “Not as skinny as Howard, though.”

“Thanks. Nice to know I’m off the suspect list.”

“You were never on it, idiot,” Maya says fondly.

Leonard shoos her out of her chair, sits down, and then pulls her down into his lap. Maya leans her head against his shoulder gratefully.

“If it’s Kripke or if it’s anyone else here, we’ll find out, and we’ll get them arrested,” he says.

“If what’s me?” Kripke asks from the doorway, and the four of them freeze in place. His eyes rove over the group. “Well, well... sowwy, didn’t mean to intewupt your wove fest.”

“Can it, Kripke. Maya just broke up with her boyfriend.” Leonard pulls Maya closer.

“And you’we moving in alweady? Smooth wowk, Hofstadter.”

“Get screwed, Kripke. They’re just friends. Maybe if you had any you’d understand the importance of hugs.” Howard folds his arms and takes a step toward the doorway.

“Whatever. I came to ask if you’we planning on fielding a team for the Physics Bowl this year, but if you’we busy having a wove-in I can ask another time.”

Sheldon stands up so fast his chair spins. “Oh, we’ll have a team, Kripke, and we’ll wipe the floor with you.”

“Wight, whatever.” Kripke mercifully leaves them alone then.

“Do you still think it’s him?” Leonard asks Maya.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t think he’s intelligent enough to do everything that’s happened,” Sheldon says.

“Sheldon, you’d be skeptical if Kripke said he’d figured out _breathing_ ,” Howard points out.

“And your point would be?”

Howard just sighs. “Maya, are you going to be okay?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you want a hug?”

“I’ve got one, thanks.” Maya nuzzles her head against Leonard’s briefly, their curls brushing together.

“Then I’m going to get back to work before someone decides to duct tape my door closed or something.” He leans in and kisses her cheek before he goes, though, so she knows he’s not really snippy, just being flippant.

Leonard seems reluctant to let her go. “Are you going to be okay for now at least?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Go back to work. We can skip the comic book store part of the night and just go straight home and play Halo.”

“But today’s New Comics Day,” Sheldon protests.

“See, this is why I said you wouldn’t understand,” Maya mutters.

“Sheldon! She can’t go to the comic book store. Don’t you remember how you went all crazy cat guy over Amy? That’s how Maya feels right now.”

Sheldon ponders this for a minute, then asks, “Do you think we should get her a cat?”

“...no.”

“Absolutely not,” Maya adds.

 

Leonard finally leaves the two of them to get back to work. Sheldon takes up his place at one of his whiteboards, marker squeaking across the clean surface. Maya’s a little amused at how intently he regards his work; his expression is almost that of a lover instead of a scientist.

If she ever catches him kissing the whiteboard she’s not going to be entirely surprised.

She’s still too distracted to work, and ends up on Facebook instead, looking at her own profile. Bernadette and Howard, her mother and father. Aunt Amy and (speaking of Sheldon’s cats) Uncle Zazzles. Her daughter, Howard’s plastic duck. Leonard’s there as her brother now, upgraded from cousin she can’t remember when. Penny and Sarah are her sisters.

Stuart’s still listed as her boyfriend.

Maya’s hand hovers over the mouse. She moves it to the link to remove the relationship, and then stops. The pointer jerks violently, almost of its own accord, to close the web browser.

She didn’t want to let go. She still doesn’t want to let go. She’ll look at it again tonight and see if Stuart’s done anything from his end. But she doesn’t know if she can take this step. It’s stupid. It’s just a formality, and not even a terribly official one at that.

 

By eight o’clock that night she’s officially single in the eyes of Facebook, Leonard and Sheldon have beaten her and Howard repeatedly at Halo, and she’s drunk more than a few beers. Howard offers to take her home and Leonard draws him aside and argues quietly with him until Howard gives in. Leonard makes Maya drink two glasses of water and take a couple of aspirin, and leads her into his bedroom, tucking her in.

“I didn’t brush my teeth,” Maya mumbles.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you a toothbrush in the morning.”

“Where’re you gonna sleep?”

“Right here.” Leonard strips off to his boxers and t-shirt and crawls in beside her. “I promise I won’t try to grope you.”

“Didn’t think you would.”

He does put his arm around her, though, and Maya feels comforted and safe. She doesn’t care that she’s in the wrong bed with the wrong person, only that she’s warm and, yes, loved.

“Night, big bro,” she murmurs.

“Night, little sis.”

 

All the support Leonard and the others can provide doesn’t help when Maya goes home the next morning to shower and change for work and finds Stuart’s key on its TARDIS keychain sitting on her desk. He must have let himself in and left it after work. She wonders how late he stayed awake last night, if he’s all right this morning.

He’s taken his laptop and sketchpad, but left the triptych image of her evolution from now to womanhood behind, the rough edge where he pulled it from the sketchpad neatly trimmed smooth. He’s signed it, his name printed down in the bottom right-hand corner, with a comparatively flamboyant heart in front of it.

Part of her vaguely thinks she should throw it out, but it’s thoroughly overridden by the rest of her saying _no way_.

She takes it into the bedroom instead and tucks it into the top drawer of her nightstand. Then she goes into the bathroom, stripping as fast as she can; she has that rumpled slept-in clothes thing going on, and it’s not at all cool. She brushes her teeth again even though Leonard lent her a spare toothbrush while she was still at their apartment, before they had breakfast. Before he dropped her back here and offered to wait while she got ready for work. She declined, not wanting to make him late. Considering how long she spends in the shower, mostly wishing she and Stuart hadn’t been sharing shampoo because now she smells like him, she’s pretty sure she’ll be late for work herself, but even after toweling her hair dry and taking her time picking out her clothes it’s still only ten past nine when she finally leaves the apartment.

 

Her work email inbox is full when she opens it. How it didn’t all get dumped straight into the spam folder, she doesn’t know, considering it’s from a variety of clearly disposable email addresses. The subject lines alone are enough to let her know they’re not exactly friendly hellos.

She texts Howard, figuring it can wait until he has time, but he comes up straight away and is madly keying away within seconds, trying to track down the source of the emails.

“The asshat’s smart enough to have used a proxy server... but not smart enough to use one that I can’t... there!” He turns a shocked look on Maya. “Like they say in horror movies, the calls are coming from inside the house.”

The IP address corresponds to one that Caltech uses.

It’s a nice piece of concrete evidence. The only trouble is that narrowing down whoever’s bright enough to use a proxy server will be a royal pain in the ass. Caltech’s _full_ of bright people – it’s the point of the place.

The other thing Howard discovers that could be useful is the timestamps. They’re outside usual class hours, which suggests it’s more likely to be a staff member than a student. Not definitely, but probably.

“The question is, do we take this to Siebert, or do we do something about it ourselves? Because I’m pretty sure I can get into the records of who was here last night.”

“That would render the evidence illegal, if what you’ve done hasn’t already done so,” Sheldon comments, not turning away from his whiteboard. He interprets their silence as skepticism and adds, “Call your sister if you don’t believe me.”

“Oh, we believe you, Hermione; I assume you got that from _Caltech: A History_.”

“Howard, shut up, he’s right.” Maya calls Priya anyway, just to touch base, and is greeted with two full minutes of demands to know why Maya didn’t tell her about the breakup.

“I had to find out from Facebook, is this how you tell your family everything these days? Are you okay? What happened?”

“I’ll tell you tonight, okay? I’ll come over and tell you. Right now I need to know about email addresses and computer IPs being admissible as evidence.” She explains the situation.

“Maya, you have to take this to Siebert. You can’t go any further without the waters becoming very murky. Email him and print hard copies, at least two. Hide a copy somewhere this jerk won’t find it. BCC your home email addresses into the email to Siebert. That should cover it pretty well.”

“Thanks, Pri. I owe you quesadillas for this.”

“I’m going to hold you to that. Maya...” Her voice trails off. “Just hang in there, all right?”

Maya manages to get more work done that day than she expected, bouncing ideas off Sheldon, who’s more forgiving of her questions when they’re not up to her usual standards. Stuart’s never far from her mind, but somehow she pushes through the layers of memories to find her work brain and get it functioning.

 

Priya’s started cooking by the time Maya gets to her apartment, but she lets Maya take over and starts mixing margaritas.

“Are you sure those are a good idea on a work night?”

“They’re a good idea any night when you’ve had a breakup.” Priya rolls the rims of the glasses expertly with salt and fills them to the brim. “I shredded the chicken already, it’s in the fridge. Use plenty of cheese. I miss dairy.”

Maya tosses the chicken in a bowl with a small mountain of grated cheese and stirs the salsa through it before adding corn kernels and chopped shallots. She scoops generous globs onto each tortilla before folding them over and sliding them into Priya’s toaster oven. Then she takes her margarita and drinks half of it in about three swallows.

“I’m calling Stuart,” she announces.

“No, you’re not.”

“I just need to know how he’s doing.” Maya pulls out her phone.

Priya tackles her and yanks the phone out of her hand. “No way. It’s too soon. If you need to know how he is, check his Facebook wall.”

“Like he’s going to say anything personal on Facebook. That’s not what it’s for,” Maya protests.

Priya steps past her and puts the phone on top of the fridge. “It’s staying there until after dinner.”

“Oh, okay.” Maya doesn’t bother to try to get her phone back; Priya’s dangerously close to the knife block.

They eat in front of an episode of _NCIS_ , and Maya rhapsodizes about Abby, alternating between admiring her perky Gothiness and wondering how she’d look with Abby’s twin ponytail hairstyle.

“You’d have to get your hair straightened,” Priya says.

“Do you think that would work?”

Priya pulls a lock of her own hair out in front of her face. “You don’t think this stays straight all by itself, do you?” She bounds up off the couch and into the bathroom, returning with a ceramic hair straightener, a brush, and two different combs.

“Are you sure you should be drinking and operating hot machinery?”

“I had a friend in college who used to iron my hair while she was stoned.” Priya plugs the straightener into an extension lead and brings it over to the couch. “With an actual iron.”

“Please tell me you were stoned as well to think that was a good idea.”

“She worked better when she was a little out of it. She never burned anyone’s hair. She ended up dropping law to become a beautician.”

“I hope she stopped using actual irons.” Maya sits very still as Priya sections her hair out with the brush and the wide-toothed comb, and then runs the straightener slowly over each section. Her hair smells hot and when it falls down against her face it feels even hotter. Priya goes over each section with the finer comb and then reapplies the straightener before finally finding a couple of hair elastics and pulling Maya’s hair into twin ponytails. They’re more like little bunches, but longer than usual due to being straight, the tips brushing just past her shoulders.

“Can I have my phone back now?”

“As long as you promise me you’re not going to text Stuart pictures.”

“I’m not, I just want to _take_ pictures so I can try to get the same look at home.” She actually wants them for her transitions thread on Fetlife but knows that if she admits as much to Priya, Priya won’t rest until she’s ferreted out her profile and read everything on it.

She also doesn’t admit that Stuart will probably end up finding the photos there anyway. She hasn’t checked if he’s changed their relationship status on there yet; she’s still trying to figure out how to word a post about the attack that won’t get the entire trans population of Pasadena baying for the unidentified asshat’s blood. Nice as it would be to have them on her side for this, she’s hoping that if they do everything by the book, justice will be served.

 

When she gets home she already has a message on Fet from Sarah, wanting to know what’s up with her and Stuart. Sarah’s one of the few people she’s trusted with her real identity (not that, she supposes, with the number of photos and the amount of detail about her life she’s posted on Fet, it would be that hard to find her if someone really wanted to), and so she’s obviously seen Facebook.

Maya posts her photos first, giving them the boring caption of _Indian Abby_ , and then goes to Stuart’s profile page. Nothing’s changed; maybe he hasn’t been on here since the split. It’s not like he has a photo thread to maintain, after all. She opens his Facebook page in another tab and then goes back to Sarah’s message to explain everything that happened. She gets halfway through typing it out before a message pops up in the site chat down on the bottom right-hand side of the screen. It’s Sarah herself, conveying her concern with a lot of exclamation marks.

_I’ll be okay_ , Maya types. _But Stuart was beaten up because of me, and so I didn’t want him to be at risk anymore._

_Don’t you think that’s a decision he should be allowed to make for himself?_

_You should have seen him. He’s covered in bruises. The asshole tried to choke him._

There’s a pause as Sarah composes a reply, and Maya clicks over to Stuart’s Facebook page while she’s waiting. There’s a new photo up on his timeline of him and Wil Wheaton sitting together at the bowling alley; she recognizes the classic self-shot with a phone camera (probably Wil’s; she cross-checks Wil’s Twitter and it’s there as well – the man cannot keep his hands off his phone for more than a minute). She’s glad that she knows Stuart is more straight than “or something”, because they’re sitting awfully close together and they’ve known each other for a long time and there’s nothing like a rebound fling for... she shakes her head hard and clicks back to where Sarah’s response is waiting.

_So did you end it, or was it mutual? Because if you ended it, that kind of sucks. He really needs your support right now._

_He needs support, he’s getting support elsewhere, he doesn’t need me dragging him down._

_But you love him._

_I do. Enough to be sure that he’s safer this way._ Maya can feel herself about to cry _again_ , and she hastily says goodnight and shuts her laptop down before she inflicts any water damage on it.

 

The week drags back around to New Comics Night and Maya asks Leonard to pick up her comics for her. She still doesn’t want to go down there in person, not even though the first round of books have come in and Stuart’s been talking on the store’s Facebook page about the new displays. Even photos of the store make her miss him.

It’s later than she expected when there’s a knock at her door.

“Leonard, Sheldon’s going to kick your ass if you’re late for Halo night...” Her voice trails off when she opens the door and Stuart’s standing there, her comic books in his arms. He walks past her and deposits them on the coffee table, and then turns to face her.

“Maya, hear me out, please.”

She closes the door and moves closer to him, close enough to reach out and touch him if she dares.

“I’ve thought about this since last Tuesday—” not _since we broke up_ , she notices “—and I would rather be beaten up every day for the rest of my life than give up what we have. I don’t want you to leave me just because you think you’re protecting me by doing it. If—” he swallows hard and looks down at the floor before lifting his eyes to meet hers again “—if you want to break up for some other reason, then I’ll go along with it. But if that’s the only reason, then we’re in this together.”

Maya’s mouth works, but no words come out. She feels like he cast a silence spell on her as soon as he walked through the door and has forgotten to lift it. All she can do is stare at him, at the delicate sweep of his eyelashes against his mostly-healed bruises when he blinks, at the faded yellow marks along his cheekbone and in the hollow of his throat.

“There’s no other reason,” she manages to say at last. “No other reason at all.” And she closes the gap between them, finding his soft, familiar lips with hers, kissing him as though her life depends on it, as if the touch of his mouth is as vital to her as air. He kisses her back just as greedily, arms wrapping around her to hold her close against him, and she puts her arms around his waist and clings on like a tenacious kitten.

“When I thought we couldn’t be together, I died inside,” he says simply when they finally come up for air. “I went to my therapist and all he did was practically shove Zoloft down my throat and tell me to get an actual girlfriend.”

“Oh my God, what did you say to that?”

“I fired him. Well, I walked out and didn’t go back. I’ll have to find someone else... if I need someone else. I’ve barely needed any of that sort of help since we got together.”

“We have to re-relationship each other on Facebook,” Maya says.

“Is that how you want to tell everyone?”

“Well, yeah. Because then I want to take you to bed.” She leans in and bites his neck very precisely and Stuart shivers and laughs and goes to the front door.

“Lucky I brought this with me, then,” he says, and pulls a bag inside. He’s got his laptop and sketchpad and pencils in it, along with a handful of clothing.

“You were sure I’d take you back, weren’t you?”

“No. I was sure we were never really broken up in the first place.”

 

He maintains his quiet confidence for the rest of the night, being very serious about everything he does, from washing her back in the shower to touching her everywhere possible when they’re in the bedroom. Maya has lit a whole lot of votive candles and feels like she’s in a scene out of a romantic comedy, and says so.

“Whereas if I got to set the scene, I’d fly you to the end of the universe and we could make love while the last stars went supernova,” Stuart says, licking the underside of her breast and then blowing on it lightly, giving her goosebumps.

“Sheldon can talk all he wants about his doctorates, but being a Time Lord’s greater than two PhDs,” Maya says, shivering a little as Stuart repeats the treatment on her other breast.

“You’re definitely the sort of Companion the Doctor would want to sleep with,” Stuart mumbles, burying his mouth between her breasts.

“Now you’re making it sound like I’m Inara.”

“You do have a certain exotic appeal.”

“I suppose – oh, God, do that again—”

Stuart lifts his mouth off her nipple. “You suppose what?”

“ _Stuart_.”

“ _Inara_.”

“I suppose that makes you Mal then.”

“If I were Mal—” his tongue’s tracing its way downward “—I would’ve made my move on Inara a lot sooner.”

“I think I know what our Halloween costumes—” And that’s as far as she gets, because he’s carefully licking just the tip of her, teasing with his tongue the way he will when he’s licking her clit. Although this is sometimes questionable territory, tonight her body and mind are both saying yes to his every move. She clutches the blanket and arches her back and for a moment his lips slip around the tip of her and he sucks lightly before pulling back, not wanting to push things too far.

They end up with Maya on top of Stuart, kneeling astride him, her hair falling in her eyes. He pushes it away but it keeps falling back and she sort of likes peering out through its curtain. The angle of him into her is different this way; she quickly finds the best position for both of them and then just rocks slowly atop him. His hands seek out her breasts and his palms slide over her nipples the way they have learned she likes best, his long fingers stroking over the curves, fanning out to cup her breasts before he moves one hand to her hip and silently urges her to move a little harder, a little faster.

By the end she’s moaning his name, and his eyes are shut tight, his breathing rapid. His fingers on her hips nearly bruise her when he comes, and her own orgasm is triggered by his; she comes against the small soft curve of his stomach. She expects him to be revolted but he doesn’t seem to be – in fact, he dips a fingertip in her juices and sucks it thoughtfully.

“You’re delicious, you know,” he says, and does it again, and Maya throws her head back and climaxes a second time, smaller on the heels of the first but no less sweet for it.

 

Getting up in the morning is a burden. Now that Stuart’s back she doesn’t want to leave him. In the end she drives him to work just so they get the extra few minutes together. She leans over to kiss him goodbye and hesitates, and he slides one hand around the back of her neck and kisses her square on the mouth, apparently not caring if anyone notices.

Maya goes on to work. On the way her phone rings twice – Priya both times – but she lets it go to voicemail and the second time Priya actually leaves a message. (She’s always hated voicemail.) Maya listens to it on the way to her office from the car; Priya’s just making very un-Priya-ish shrieky noises about her and Stuart, so Maya assumes she’s seen Facebook.

Leonard catches her in the hallway between the car park and her office and hugs her. He doesn’t need to say why, either. Howard sends her a text that’s just a series of smiley (and winky) faces. Even Sheldon manages a smile that doesn’t look like he’s imitating the Joker, and one of those shoulder pats of his that he doles out in lieu of hugs.

Even the fact that her inbox is full of disgusting emails again doesn’t get her down. She just takes screenshots and forwards a few to Siebert, who writes back immediately even though he’s out of town at a conference to say that he’ll be requesting a full police investigation as soon as he’s back. It means waiting until next Monday but that will be a breeze compared to all the waiting without hope they’ve been doing.

Then she realizes next Monday is the fourth of April, the day she’s supposed to fly out to India, and suddenly she really has to pee. She thought she’d gotten over that particular stress reaction, but apparently not. She dashes down the hall and makes it just in time, and then sits there picking at loose threads on her sleeve for five minutes, regathering her breath and her composure.

It’s okay. She can leave her computer passwords with Howard and still go with Priya. It’s not like they can change the dates now and the police investigation is important and she can come in as soon as she gets back if she has to. She’d rather not, but if she has to, she will. She just has to make it through the days between now and then.

It’ll be a lot easier with Stuart by her side.

 

**Then (December 2010): Disowning**

Nanda thinks she’s never seen her father so angry in her life. He got mad when first Raj then Priya announced their intentions to go to America, even if Priya wasn’t originally going to move there for good, but that’s nothing compared to the incandescent rage he’s got going now.

“None of you will speak to Rajesh ever again, you understand me?” He’s assembled the family, even Sanjay and Tariq, who haven’t lived at the Koothrappali family home for years. “And if Priya continues her misguided insolence, she, and any of you who insist on going along with this nonsense, will also no longer be a part of this family. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Daddy,” and ‘Yes, Papa,” the Koothrappali siblings chorus. Tariq’s eyes are almost as angry as his father’s. Sanjay looks equal parts furious and ashamed. Manoj looks more confused than anything else. When Nanda meets her mother’s eyes she sees only a deep sadness.

Nanda messages Rajesh on Facebook that very night, although she’s going by a different name now, and tells her she loves her. She’s careful to do it on her own laptop, rather than the family computer, and obsessively checks her privacy settings before and after sending it. She starts changing her information around, separating her parents and Sanjay and Tariq into another group so they can’t see that she still has Raj listed as her sibling. She’s not sure if she should change the listing from “brother” to “sister” or what she’s meant to do; all Daddy has said is that Raj is _hijra_ and as far as they’re concerned is untouchable. She doesn’t know if that’s true or not, but she does know she’s ignoring the “untouchable” part.

Her bedroom door squeaks open and Nanda snaps the laptop shut and shoves it under her pillow. “What, Manoj?”

Her little brother – and she will always think of him that way, even though he’s twenty-one and at university now – comes in and sits on the edge of her bed. “I don’t believe what Papa said is right,” he says, coming straight to the point, as he usually does. “I’m not willing to ignore Raj for the rest of our lives.”

“I wish _I_ could afford to go to America,” Nanda says, sighing in frustration.

“Do you think he’s really _hijra_? They don’t seem so strange. I’ve seen them around in the streets and mostly they’re just like anyone else, as far as I can tell.”

“Not to Daddy.”

“Well, he might think he’s the head of this family—”

“—he is—”

“—but that doesn’t mean he gets to dictate our every move. I’m going to tell Raj I support him no matter what.”

“I think you’re supposed to say ‘her’ now.”

“Her, then. Don’t say anything to Sanjay and Tariq. I don’t think they care about her at all.”

“I think Tariq’s totally on Daddy’s side,” Nanda agrees. “But I think Mummy might not be.”

“Probably safer not to talk to her about it, though,” Manoj says pragmatically, and Nanda knows he’s right.

She starts a new list on Facebook once he’s gone to bed: people who are definitely safe to talk to about Rajesh. Manoj goes on the list, and so does Priya, and after she reads Raj’s wall carefully she puts Haroon and Tanvir on the list as well. They’re only on her Facebook because Raj is friends with them anyway, so they might as well be on there for a proper reason.

Once she has the filter in place, she makes a post to it to test it out, knowing that if her parents see it she risks at best a lecture and at worst... well, she doesn’t want to think about it too much.

Within a few minutes she has a reply from Priya, telling her that yes, she really should list Raj as her sister now. It’s accompanied by a smiley, and she can practically hear her sister’s condescending voice through the text, but she does it anyway, and then deletes the status update from her timeline.

This is going to take a lot of work to keep secret, but she’s realizing that family is not just about blood, but about choice.


	10. chapter nine: I’ll be the one to pick you up again

**Now (April 2011): Moving (IV)**

Maya’s ass feels flat as a pancake after over twenty hours of flight, even considering the layover in Japan (where, despite really not having room in her carryon luggage, she bought a Gothic Hello Kitty plushie for Stuart and a small mountain of candy). She’s glad that she took the entire week off work; it seems like Priya didn’t really consider just how long the flights would be while she was booking them. At least they got free upgrades to business class just because Priya smiled nicely at the pilot when they got on board.

They take a long nap in the hotel, but not so long that they don’t have time to go home during the day, when Vijay is at work and – hopefully – the rest of the family are out as well. As for Deepak and Mercy Patel, if they’re around, Priya’s got plans to persuade them to look the other way. Their children were never really servants as such (even if Maya thought so when she was younger), and are probably at school, with any luck; the school holidays start soon, but Maya thinks they’ve made it in time.

The two of them empty out their suitcases in the hotel and carry them to the house in which they grew up. In LA it would be just another townhouse; here, it’s practically a mansion. Priya unlocks the front door, looks around, and beckons Maya inside as if they’re on some sort of covert spy mission. Maybe they are, in a way.

Their old room is the second one at the head of the stairs. There’s a light on in the first room and Maya holds her breath as they sidle past. It could be Nanda or Manoj – the most likely idea, since it’s their room – or it could be their mother.

They make it into their old room without discovery and put their cases down on their respective beds. Maya goes to her wardrobe first, not for clothes, but for the box where she kept her best school reports. She has an attachment to her academic achievements. Priya starts folding dresses and skirts and shirts as fast as she can, tucking ornaments and jewelry boxes in around them. They deliberately packed light to bring as much back as they could, but Maya has the feeling they’ll need another suitcase on the flight home.

Although they work in as much silence as they can, Maya turns around at one point to see silent tears rolling down her sister’s face. She stops what she’s doing (sorting ancient comic books) and goes to embrace her, holding her close and stroking her hair.

“Priya?” The voice from the doorway is low and curious. Maya’s head whips around and she sees Nanda standing there. “Oh, Krishna! It _is_ you!”

“Sssh!” Priya hisses, and she grabs Nanda’s wrist and pulls her into the room, pushing the door shut. “Nanda, does anyone else know we’re here?”

Nanda shakes her head, throwing her arms around Priya’s waist. “Daddy’s at work, and Manoj is at the library studying.” Knowing Manoj, it probably isn’t a synonym for getting drunk and fooling around with Haroon and Tanvir, as was sometimes Maya’s ulterior motive. “I don’t know where Mummy is though. Are you leaving forever?” She sounds three instead of twenty-three; her dark eyes are wet with tears. “I don’t want you to go!”

“We have to,” Priya says, her own tears still falling. Maya watches with a strange kind of detachment, surprised that she herself hasn’t started crying, considering her usual tendency towards turning on the waterworks at every opportunity. “Nanda, we love you, but we have to go home. We just came to get a few things.”

Nanda finally turns to Maya. “Raj- Maya,” she carefully corrects herself. “You look beautiful.”

Maya’s just wearing her favorite jeans and a black top with a bright butterfly batik print across the front, but knowing that her little sister is on her side is the biggest compliment she could get. She holds open her arms and Nanda runs the three steps to her and squeezes her tight. Nanda’s nearly as tall as she is now, her features a slightly rounded variation on Priya’s sultry good looks.

“You could visit Manoj if you want. I can text him. It’s okay, he’s on your side too,” Nanda offers.

“Maybe tomorrow, before we fly back home.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that. _This_ is home.” Even as she says it Maya can see in Nanda’s eyes that she knows the truth.

“Not for us. Not anymore. And you’d better be careful that Papa doesn’t find out about this,” Maya says, trying not to be too cruel.

“At least let me help you pack,” Nanda says, picking up one of Priya’s dresses and unfolding it, then rolling it. “This way it won’t crease, and you can fit more in.”

Maya goes back to her comics and toys, taking only what she can’t bear to leave behind. Her case is full before she’s finished and she has to put it on the floor and sit on it to get the lid closed in the end, but she’s happy with what she’s got. Nanda ends up lying on Priya’s case to squash everything down, and keeps offering to go and get one of her own cases, but Priya declines, afraid that it will be noticed as missing from the family’s huge matching luggage set.

They creep down the stairs, Nanda’s chatter silenced completely as they cross the front hall. This is it; they’re almost home free.

“Girls.”

One word, and the three of them freeze like naughty children caught playing somewhere they shouldn’t be. Like the front hall, on roller skates, when Maya was eight; she remembers it for some reason and almost laughs.

Their mother has come out of the living room and is standing regally in the doorway, arms folded. “I thought we might see you eventually,” she says, sounding resigned. “Priya, come here.”

Priya looks ready to protest but instead puts down her case and crosses the marble floor, heels clicking, to her mother. She stops an arm’s length away and Rupinder reaches out to her, closing the gap. She pulls Priya into a loose, awkward embrace, kissing her cheek.

“I’ll miss you,” she says simply. “Maya?”

Maya is frozen to the spot, unable to believe that she just heard her real name from her mother’s lips. Rupinder beckons her impatiently and she goes. Her mother’s lips are dry against her cheek; she is suddenly reminded of the fact that Rupinder must be in her late fifties by now. She does not look old as such, but she does look worn out.

“Look after yourself. And I expect you to keep looking after your sister, even if you aren’t her big brother any more. Have respect for her, and maybe she’ll do the same for you.”

Priya lets out an undignified snort of laughter, and a slight smile touches Rupinder’s lips before she becomes serious again.

“Now go. I never saw you, and the rest of your things will be thrown away tonight. It’s time Nanda had her own room, and it might as well be the girls’ room.” She sighs. “I wish you hadn’t chosen this path.”

“It chose me, mother,” Maya says.

“I just thought this family would be together forever. I’ve worked so hard—” Rupinder’s mouth snaps shut on whatever she was going to say, but Maya has her suspicions.

“Goodbye, Mummy,” Priya says. “I’ll call.”

“Don’t. Your father doesn’t want to know you anymore, and I don’t want to anger him.” She twists the wedding band on her finger. “Nanda, walk them out.” She kisses them both goodbye on the cheek and goes back into the living room without any further words, but with one long look back at the three of them. In that look Maya sees sadness and hope intermingled. She wishes she could run to her mother, take her hand and bring her out from Vijay’s shadow, but knows that she can’t, and the knowledge breaks her heart.

 

The hotel room is boring and bland after the opulence of their former home. Priya dumps her suitcase, which promptly pops open, scattering clothes all over her bed, and announces, “We’re going out.”

“Okay, where?” Maya is more than agreeable to going out, considering the general beigeness of the hotel room.

There’s a market not far from the hotel. Both of them wear more traditional clothes than they usually would; Priya pulls out an old blue sari from her rediscovered wardrobe, and Maya has one in a fairly tame shade of orange, although it does have little jingling golden beads along the bottom hem. Priya helps her fix her headscarf so she can pull it forward to hide her face just in case they run into their father, although the chances of him going to a common market are exactly zero.

Then they hit the town.

Maya didn’t realize she was homesick for India until she gets in amongst the stalls and the people, the noise of goats and yelling and laughter, and in spite of having her foot stepped on twice within the first minute by someone who appears to have fitted golf cleats to their sandals from the feel of it she’s enjoying herself. Although they’re not planning to stay long in India – Maya’s not looking forward to another twenty hour flight on top of the last one, but is starting to come to terms with the idea as long as they get upgraded again – Priya has converted some dollars to rupees and stuffed a handful into Maya’s purse before they left the hotel.

There’s beautiful clothing everywhere and Maya’s sure she’s going to end up needing her own extra suitcase if she buys everything she wants. Instead of going nuts, though, she picks her way through to the crowd to a stall selling bolts of fabric. Thinking of what she said to Stuart about Halloween, she finds some red, lightly textured cloth and, with a cosplayer’s eye, matching soft shoes from the next stall.

“You’re paying for any excess baggage,” Priya says despairingly, and Maya just laughs.

This being a market, there’s naturally a multitude of jewelry stalls. Maya’s looking around for a pendant to wear with her outfit – maybe something in black, she’s not sure if more red would be overkill or not – when a hand catches her sleeve and tugs her gently toward one of the stalls.

“I think this is what you are looking for, to go with that beautiful cloth.”

At first she can’t tell if the voice is male or female, and looking at the speaker doesn’t help her; they look androgynous, albeit with long hair and a bright green sari.

“Red jasper and black tourmaline,” the speaker goes on, and Maya realizes she’s looking at someone who has found the reality of life outside the gender binary and embraced it, and as if reading her mind the speaker smiles and presses the beaded necklace into her hands. It’s black leather with three red beads either side of a black heart that’s set in gold. “And matching earrings.” They are small red hearts hanging from gold hooks; Maya holds them up beside her ears and gives Priya a questioning look. Her sister nods vehemently, even though she doesn’t know exactly what Maya’s buying them for.

“How much?” she asks.

“Fifteen hundred the set. Normally I charge a thousand each but you, I think, need pretty things in your life. The tourmaline is good protection, too, and the jasper is a good stone for a woman.”

Maya’s only response is, “Do you sell navel rings?”

She comes away with a much lighter purse, except for the fact that now it’s stuffed with jewelry instead of money. She doesn’t usually wear red, favoring jade green and other water hues, but she has a particular outfit in mind, and by Halloween she’ll be all woman and more than eligible to wear it. At least, that’s the plan, and the way she’s thinking at the moment.

 

As they’re about to leave the market, a male voice calls out, “Priya!” and they both freeze, sure it’s their father or one of the older boys. Instead, Haroon bursts out of the crowd and throws his arms around Priya.

“What are you doing here? Who’s your – _Maya_?”

“Hi,” Maya says.

“Oh my... Tani, come here! Tan!”

Tanvir emerges pushing a stroller with a bright-eyed toddler girl in it. “Settle down, Hari, we’re coming.” He stops stock-still when he sees Maya. “Oh dear gods and goddesses.”

“I thought I told you we were coming,” Maya says.

“I wasn’t expecting to run into you in the middle of town!” Haroon gives her a bone-crushing hug and dips her briefly into a kiss, and her head spins more than it ever used to with these boys. Tanvir kisses her as well. Priya watches them with a raised eyebrow.

“Daddy, who that?” the girl in the stroller asks.

“Jasneet, this is Maya, who’s a pretty pink princess sometimes, and her sister Priya.”

“She an _orange_ princess,” Jasneet corrects Tanvir with all the imperiousness a three-year-old can muster.

“Orange princess, then,” Tanvir says. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you looking so happy, Maya. Everything must be going really well in California.”

“It is,” Maya says honestly. “Even with the vandalism and the breakup, we’re back together now and we’re really happy.”

“Well, anytime you want to come back here, you can always join us again,” Haroon says with a daring wink.

“ _Again_?” Priya murmurs.

“Hari, quiet,” Tanvir says, but Maya knows she’s going to get grilled about that at some point.

“Papa, Priya a princess too?” Jasneet asks.

“She must be if she’s Maya’s sister, right?” Haroon says.

“Blue princess.” It comes out almost as _Bwue pwincess_.

“That’s right.”

“I a princess too,” Jasneet announces, and looking at how happy she seems and how happy Haroon and Tanvir are, Maya’s inclined to agree.

They talk a little longer until Jasneet starts complaining of hunger and then go their separate ways. Despite Haroon’s cheeky offer, Maya has the feeling that they’ve settled down now and she’s no longer quite as big a part of their lives, and she’s happy with that. She’s less happy with the way Priya badgers her for information about them on the way back to the hotel, but she manages to evade the more personal questions.

 

They go back to the hotel, having eaten dinner and bought a new suitcase, and flip through the channels on the television twice before deciding nothing decent is on. Priya starts reading through the in-house movie guide while Maya sends Stuart a text that’s prohibitively expensive for being international but explains in detail what she’s got planned for Halloween. He texts back fifteen minutes later complaining that she woke him up at three in the morning and now he’s really missing her, and Maya reads between the lines, texting back a few thoughts on how she plans to serve him as his Companion.

“You’re going to run up the world’s biggest bill if you keep doing that,” Priya remarks, having settled on a movie billed as a dark comedy, _7_ _Khoon Maaf_.

“Says the woman who looked at the breakfast buffet menu and said ‘I’m having that’ to all of it.” Maya rolls onto her stomach on her bed to snap a photo of the earrings and necklace laid out on the garish orange quilt, texting the image to Stuart with, _Imagine when this is all I’m wearing_. She’s imagining him lying there in their bed, phone in one hand and cock in the other; she wishes she could call him and talk dirty to him (or try, anyway), but even if she went into the bathroom Priya would overhear. So she has to settle for sending him the most salacious texts she can think of without resorting to going into the bathroom and taking naked photos. (Although now the thought has occurred to her, she really wants to do it. She’s never felt this exhibitionistic in her _life_. Stuart just brings it out in her for some reason.)

There are longer and longer breaks between his replies until his final message, which is simply, _I hope you’re happy because I’ll be trying to work tomorrow with no functioning brain, since it just came out._

_I’m happy_ , she texts back, putting her phone away at last. Priya has discovered that the movie is more dark than comedy and turned it off.

“Any chance you’d like to entertain me now?” she asks.

“Not like that,” Maya answers unthinkingly, and Priya laughs.

“So you two made up pretty quickly.”

“Stuart said to me that it was like we’d never really broken up, and I think that’s true,” Maya says slowly. “I think we were just waiting for some sort of sign that it was going to be okay to be together in spite of what happened to Stuart.”

“And did you get one?”

“No. Stuart just showed up on my doorstep with a bunch of comic books and asked me to reconsider.”

“Usually it’s a bunch of _flowers_. And you did?”

“It took me about two seconds to decide. He was just so sincere about wanting to be together even with the risks... plus we’re a lot closer to finding out who’s behind all this.”

“Really? How?”

“The IP address thing I asked you about. President Siebert’s going to get the police back in and open up the IT records and hopefully we’ll have an answer within the next few days. I mean, probably more than one person worked late the night the emails went out, but they’ll be able to narrow it down from Stuart’s description of his attacker.” Just saying it brings that horrible night back to mind and Maya swallows hard.

Priya gets up and goes to the mini-bar, making them rudimentary White Russians with vodka and tiny single-serving splashes of faux-milk. She doesn’t need particularly big glasses for them, either. Maya drinks hers in a few quick mouthfuls and feels the warm splash of alcohol in her tummy.

“So what about you and Leonard?” she asks, emboldened by the vodka. “How serious are things getting there?”

“Well, actually... I’m thinking of asking him to move in with me.”

If Maya still had a mouthful of drink she would have spat it across the room in shock. “Priya! That’s not proper!”

“Why not? You did it with Stuart,” Priya says slyly.

“Oh, come on, that’s not fair. He needed somewhere to live.”

“And I need a boyfriend who doesn’t come with a neurotic, whining accessory who bangs on the wall when we’re trying to have sex.”

“TM- no, wait, not TMI, I’m not surprised by that at all.”

“So what do you think? I mean, what do you really think, forget that what’s proper bullshit.”

Maya’s floored for a second by her sister swearing, but recovers quickly. “I think you should listen to your heart, but make sure he pays half the rent,” she says.

Priya laughs. “I’ll make him sign a pre-nup. Or whatever the equivalent is for moving in together.”

“I think you call that a roommate agreement, and he already has one with Sheldon. Does that mean he and Sheldon are engaged?”

“Maya! You had _one_ drink!”

“Just kidding.”

Priya takes Maya’s glass away and refills it: half a tiny bottle of vodka, which probably costs at least ten bucks on its own, and two of the little milk servings. “Here, have this, then at least you have an excuse for being idiotic.”

“I don’t need an excuse.”

“Yes, but it tastes good.”

“It tastes weird.”

“Are you insulting my ability to make cocktails out of extremely limited ingredients?” Priya asks with a dangerous glint in her eye.

“Not if you’re going to glare at me like that.”

“I wasn’t glaring!”

They bicker and talk and drink and laugh until well after midnight, when Priya finally calls lights out so that they will be sufficiently awake to meet Nanda and Manoj for lunch.

 

The place they’ve chosen is a café mostly frequented by students of the University of Delhi; since Manoj and Nanda both study there, they’re almost constantly waving and calling hello to people across the room.

Manoj is a little more reserved than Nanda was when it comes to greeting his sisters, but he does manage a hug for each of them.

“So what are you two studying, anyway?” Maya asks once they’re settled in with coffee and cake.

“Science,” Manoj says in a _duh_ tone.

“Ayurvedic medicine,” Nanda says.

Priya raises an eyebrow at her. Maya’s struggling not to do the same thing.

“It’s not as out there as you’d think. We’ve abandoned any medicinal treatments involving stuff that might poison people,” Nanda protests.

“I keep telling her she might as well be doing homeopathy, but she won’t listen,” Manoj says.

“And I keep telling him to _apni_ _land_ _choos_ , but he won’t do it,” Nanda says sweetly.

“Nanda! Language!” Priya looks shocked.

“I’d be impressed if he was that flexible,” Maya says not quite under her breath, and Manoj cracks up despite the joke being at his expense.

“So now I have three big sisters to annoy me.”

“Pretty much, little brother,” Nanda says.

“On the bright side, you know who to come to for legal advice,” Priya says.

“And help with your homework,” Maya adds.

“And healing when you sprain your back trying to – ow, Manoj, don’t _kick_.”

The rest of the conversation passes in much the same vein, until it’s time for Manoj to get back to studying, for Nanda to go to a massage class (Maya thinks it sounds interesting and resolves to look into it for herself back home), and for Maya and Priya to go back to the hotel and pack.

They say their goodbyes reluctantly but quickly, suddenly wary of the fact that anyone watching them might say something to their parents. Rupinder might secretly, deep down inside, be on Maya’s side, but Vijay will never sway. Nanda swears she’ll come to the States to see them as soon as possible; the way she says it makes it sound like she’s planning a trip to the Promised Land.

Maya nearly has a heart attack when, on their way back to the hotel, Tariq passes them in the street. He’s walking fast, arms swinging at his sides, and it’s just lucky that he’s so determined to reach his destination, because otherwise he would have run right into them.

“I hope he’s not going after Manoj and Nanda,” Priya says, frowning.

Maya has her phone out already sending the pair warning messages, but it’s not until after they’ve gotten back to the hotel and are repacking their suitcases (with less jumping on them involved now they have a third one) that she gets the replies saying that everything is all right and she doesn’t need to worry. Well, that’s what she gets from Nanda; Manoj just sends _Stress less, nothing happened_.

 

Their flight back to LAX is delayed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport for almost two hours; given that it was supposed to leave at quarter of midnight, Maya hates everything by the time they’re finally able to board. Then the news comes that their layover in Japan will be for four hours and she almost cries, then abandons the “almost” and just cries, wiping her eyes with a rough airplane tissue and eventually falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Priya has to shake her awake when they land in Tokyo and she stumbles off the plane like a sleepwalking zombie.

She wakes up when she discovers that Haneda Airport has a café with a planetarium, and ends up buying a set of button badges to take home to Stuart. Although this isn’t exactly a vacation, she still feels like he deserves a present, and wonders whether she should send him a postcard.

“You’d get there before it,” Priya points out, slowly eating a bowlful of chicken and rice with a lot more pleasure than any of the food they had on the plane. “Now eat up, I want to go shopping.”

“We’re going to need an extra carryon bag at this rate,” Maya says, and Priya just laughs.

The four hours end up passing faster than Maya could have believed and then they’re back on a plane headed home.

When she finally stumbles off the plane at LAX, still tired despite another long nap, what wakes her up is the sight of Stuart and Leonard holding up a sign between them that says _Welcome home Maya and Priya!_ She can imagine the bickering about whose name to put first, but that’s the least of her concerns as she creeps through the line exiting Customs and finally gets to drop her bags and throw herself into her boyfriend’s arms. Beside her, Leonard is giving Priya an equally enthusiastic welcome home kiss and for once Maya doesn’t have the heart to tell them off for public displays of affection.

She’s just too happy to be home at last.

 

They make a lot of tiny changes over the next few days. Maya’s home answering message is now one she and Stuart record together, the first few takes ruined by self-conscious laughter. They shop together for extra odds and ends for their apartment, such as a proper drafting desk with a light box for Stuart, who protests the cost for a full ten minutes before giving in after Maya pulls him aside and whispers what she plans to do to him when she gets the desk home. Suffice to say it’s not what a drafting desk is traditionally meant to be used for, although she does think he looks like a work of art spread across it, clinging to the lower edge as she kneels in front of him.

The biggest change is probably explaining to people that they are back together, and this time it’s hopefully for good. Maya gets butterflies in her stomach every time she thinks of the future stretching out ahead of them together, as a couple. She’s scared at how easily she can picture spending the rest of her life with Stuart.

They’re going from strength to strength now. The addition of books to the Comic Center’s inventory has Stuart working overtime, but it’s proven its worth; several people have already decided that Stuart’s the person to go to for special orders, and he’s working hard to build contacts at a multitude of companies. Maya’s own job is going well, working in tandem with Sheldon.

And the police investigation is happening. They have the university’s IT access records for the relevant night, and every so often someone gets pulled in for an interview. Nothing happens for the first little while, though, until one day Howard’s running a comparison list for the police of who was at the university on each of the nights Maya got email against a list of staff and students who were present on the days that the vandalism of his and Sheldon’s offices happened, and data starts disappearing even as he’s working.

“It’s got to be someone in IT,” he says tensely, Maya watching over his shoulder. “Someone who has access to erase this stuff. Or someone who can hack.”

“That rules Kripke out,” Sheldon says. “He had to ask me how to use a mouse when he first started here.” He says this almost affectionately, and Maya rolls her eyes at him. Truth be told, she’s glad it’s not Kripke. The guy’s a jerk, but there’s a difference between being a jerk and being an out and out transphobic asshole. Plus she can’t bear the thought of Kripke being the one to have beaten Stuart up.

 

On April nineteenth, just days before the Easter weekend, they find him. His name is Alan Masterton, he does in fact work in the IT department, and he tries to escape out of a window when the police knock on his office door. The only problem is that his office is in the basement near the server room and it only takes one officer to grab his flailing legs and yank him back in through the window.

“You fucked-up freak,” he snarls at Maya, who’s standing by the door with Siebert.

“Let him pack his things. He’s not coming back,” Siebert says calmly.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Even if you didn’t do anything else, you just called one of my valued staff members a fucked-up freak. That’s enough to get you fired. Which you are.” Siebert already has the letter in hand to notify Masterton that he’s out. Masterton takes it and rips it into shreds, drops it to the floor, and spits on it.

“You asshole. You can’t do this. I’ll see you in court.”

“Looking forward to it,” Siebert says in a deadly serious voice, and once Masterton’s been cuffed and dragged away, protesting all the while, Maya can’t help but hug him. Siebert looks surprised but returns the hug.

“We’ve got enough evidence to put him away based solely on the assault, assuming your friend Mr. Bloom can make a positive ID, but I think it’s pretty clear-cut that this is the man responsible for the attack. We’ll be able to make comparisons between his shoes and the bruising left on Mr. Bloom’s abdomen.” The officer who’s carelessly sweeping things off the desk into a box gives Maya an odd look, but at least it’s not a glare or an overt stare. “You know, if I didn’t know the nature of the case, I would have no idea you were transsexual.”

“Thanks,” Maya says, trying not to roll her eyes. It’s one of those things that people sometimes say to pretend like it’s not possible to tell that she’s trans, when she knows full well that it is.

“I mean it,” the officer says. “We’re going to have to take his computer,” he adds to Siebert. “It’s potential evidence.”

“Whatever you need. I’ll bring it myself,” Siebert says, starting to unplug the mass of cables. “Maya, you may as well go back to work. I’m sure you’ll be contacted when you’re needed to give evidence.”

Maya goes back to her office, where Leonard is waiting to hug her. “I think we should go out for a victory dinner tonight,” he announces.

“As long as we go to the Cheesecake Factory. It’s cheeseburger night,” Sheldon says. “I don’t think I can deal with any more changes to my routine.”

“What?” Maya asks.

“We’ll explain tonight.” Leonard has a half guilty, half happy expression on his face and Maya can guess what the news is, but keeps her own counsel.

 

They do end up at the Cheesecake Factory, with Priya, Amy, Stuart and Bernadette sitting with them and Penny waiting on them. She’s away getting drinks when Leonard drops the bombshell about him moving in with Priya. Sheldon looks sulky, even while everyone else is congratulating the couple.

“What’s wrong with Sheldon?” Penny asks when she comes back balancing a tray full of drinks.

“What isn’t wrong with Sheldon?” Howard says automatically.

“I meant right now.”

“Leonard’s leaving me,” Sheldon says.

“I’m moving in with Priya. You’re making it sound like I’m dumping you.”

“You might as well be.”

“Well, congratulations,” Penny says to Leonard, sounding a little stunned, and then to Sheldon, “Sweetie, he’ll be right around the corner from you. You can visit him any time.”

“Almost any time,” Priya corrects. “As long as you call first.”

“But that’s not the point! The point is, my apartment is made for two people to live in it, not one. How am I meant to afford the rent on my own?”

“I could move in with you,” Amy offers.

“Would you have to bring Ricky?”

“Well, yes. I can’t exactly leave him homeless, and he can’t afford the rent on his own.”

“Then I’ll have to decline the offer, I’m afraid, generous as it is.”

“I could move in,” Penny says. “I don’t have a chain-smoking monkey, I know your schedule inside out, and if you pay for gas money I’ll drive you to and from work as long as you don’t complain about my driving skills.”

The entire table goes silent. Sheldon appears to be seriously considering Penny’s offer.

“I’ll have to amend the roommate agreement,” he says eventually.

“Okay.”

“You’ll still have to pay your share of the rent, and you’ll have to start paying for wi-fi.”

“It’ll be cheaper than my own rent if we’re sharing. Come on, Sheldon. Be reasonable.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll draft the agreement this weekend and you can move at the beginning of next month. I assume the landlord has you on a month to month lease?”

“No, come on, I’m on a yearly lease. I’m not _that_ irresponsible.” Penny then remembers she has a tray full of drinks with rapidly melting ice and hastily starts serving them.

“You realize this will be on a trial basis for the first three months?”

“Fine, Sheldon. If I can’t stand living with you after the first three months, you can leave.” Penny turns on her heel and marches toward the kitchen.

“I can’t believe you’re going to be living with my bestie,” Amy enthuses. “Visiting you is going to be like a party every time now!”

Sheldon just pulls out a pen and a notebook and starts drafting a new roommate agreement.

“Now that we have our drinks, I’d like to propose a toast,” Maya says. “To Howard, for finding the final key to uncovering who was behind the vandalism and attacking Stuart. And to Stuart for not giving up on me because of it.”

“I’d like to propose one to Maya for taking me back, bruises and all,” Stuart says, looking up from his sketchpad.

“To Leonard and Sheldon for being so supportive,” Maya adds. “And to my sister for staying my sister.”

“I think we should toast Amy for getting the money out of Faisal for Maya’s operation,” Bernadette says.

“And we should toast Bernie because we’re already toasting everyone else,” Howard puts in.

“And Penny, for being my other sister,” Maya says as Penny returns to the table, carrying Sheldon’s cheeseburger and all the extra odds and ends he has on the side.

“To all of us,” Leonard says, raising his glass.

“Do you know where the origin of the term ‘to toast’ comes from?” Sheldon asks, and the table in general groan.

 

“How do you think Leonard and Priya will deal with living together?” Stuart asks in the warm bedtime darkness later that night.

“Probably better than Sheldon and Penny. I can’t believe she offered.”

“I can’t believe he agreed.”

“It’ll be interesting to see how that works out,” Maya says.

“You know, call me crazy, but I think it might actually work. They’re different enough for it not to be boring, but they know each other well enough to not be in each other’s way all the time.”

“They’re just going to be roommates, not boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Stuart shrugs. “You never know.”

“What about Amy?”

“She could join in.”

“Stuart Alasdair Bloom, you’re terrible.” Maya pauses as a thought comes to mind. “Have you ever thought about a threesome?”

“Not with Amy.”

“With who then?”

“Not with anyone in particular. But I do have that whole, you know, it’d be interesting to see you with another woman...” Stuart’s voice trails off and when Maya touches his cheek he’s blushing.

“It’s beyond me how your shrink could ever think you were asexual.”

“Yeah, well, you know... I didn’t exactly go into details about my love life before you, because I didn’t have much of one, and once I started dating you he was just worried that I was in the closet.”

“In the closet _and_ asexual?”

“Yeah, kind of. I guess maybe he thought I was homoromantic or something and he wouldn’t listen to me when I told him how feminine you are. I was going to show him a photo but I decided it wasn’t fair to you to keep talking about it when he obviously didn’t care, so I went back to talking about work.” Stuart shrugs again, the sheets shifting over the movement of his shoulder. “Up until I walked out on him, anyway.”

“Maybe I can find you someone new through the diversity center, or through my therapist,” Maya says. “Hey, maybe you could _see_ my therapist.”

 

Cecilia, however, has other ideas. “Not a chance,” she says, shaking her head firmly as she opens the curtains a few inches more to let in the spring sunshine. “It would be a conflict of interest on my part, and it sounds like he responds better talking to a male therapist anyway.”

“Well, can you recommend someone?”

She can and does, and Stuart ends up going without further argument that very Thursday, coming back with a look of profound relief on his face.

“He’s gay,” he announces without preamble.

Maya raises an eyebrow, pausing as she mixes vegetables for their stir-fry. “And this is relevant how?”

“Well, he’s more friendly to the trans movement. I know, I know, being queer doesn’t always mean that’s the case, but he said I should know up front he was gay and I said he should know up front my girlfriend’s a trans woman and he said, ‘Good, I’m glad you told me. What’s her name? Maybe I know her.’.”

“ _Does_ he know me?”

“No, but it’s not exactly like we go out to nightclubs and places like that where he might know you from.”

“True.” Maya adds chicken strips into the sizzling wok and stirs them briskly. “We could, though. We might even pick up that woman you want me to have sex with.”

Stuart turns deep pink. “Maybe not right away... I’d rather have you to myself for as long as possible.”

“It’s okay, I’m kidding,” Maya says. “Besides, I had enough trouble picking up women when I wasn’t one. I can’t imagine what it would be like. ‘Hi, I’m Maya and this is my boyfriend Stuart. We’d like you to come home with us. By the way, I have man parts.’”

Stuart snorts. “Don’t say that.” He can’t keep the smile off his face for long, though, even when he’s attempting to berate her for self-deprecation.

 

The Great Move of 2011, as Sheldon dubs it, is set for the weekend of the thirtieth of April. Penny and Leonard start packing boxes, and Maya and Stuart volunteer their assistance, but they still have Easter weekend to get through first. On the morning of Easter Saturday Stuart puts up a sign at the Comics Center to say it’s closed for the long weekend and the two of them, with probably more clothes than Maya really needs packed in a suitcase, start the trip to Stuart’s parents’ place in Santa Monica.

 

**Then (February 2011): Discovering**

Diane’s not very good at Facebook, and nor is Harry, but she’s good enough to notice when her son’s relationship status changes from “It’s Complicated” (and she’s been wondering what that’s supposed to mean for _months_ ) to “In a Relationship”. The girl, Maya Koothrappali, isn’t anyone she knows, although he’s mentioned her a couple of times, and so she clicks through to her profile page to see what she can find out.

Like many people’s profiles, a good deal of the information is kept private to her friends – even Diane’s managed to figure out that much – but she finds out that Maya works at Caltech, is interested in a lot of the comics things that Stuart likes, and has an awfully solemn look in her profile photo. Diane clicks on that and gets a bigger version, which she examines carefully for a good five minutes before calling Harry into the study.

“So that’s Stuart’s new girlfriend?” he asks, barely looking, wanting to get back to the television.

“Yes. Do you see anything strange about her?”

“Well, she’s dating Stuart, there’s bound to be something strange about her,” Harry says with a little chuckle.

“Harry, you’re awful. Look at her cheeks.” Diane points out where she means. “Doesn’t that look like a five o’clock shadow to you?”

Harry leans in closer, and for a second she sees nothing but puzzlement in his eyes. “I think it is. You don’t think...”

Diane goes back to Maya’s profile page and scrolls to the interests section. She silently points out the Wipe Out Transphobia group. Then she goes back another step to Stuart’s profile, where the same group is listed. “I think,” she says. “I _know_.”

Harry lets out a shaky, heavy sigh. “I guess as long as he’s happy,” he says after a long silence.

“She’s twenty-nine,” Diane says. “That makes her old enough to know what she wants to do with her life. Being in a situation like that, she probably needs someone like our Stuart to look after her.”

“I just... don’t you think it’s strange that our son would be attracted to someone like that?”

“Someone like _what_ , Harry? Someone younger, and attractive, and smart, and – you know what, I’m telling him congratulations right now and inviting them for dinner. He can’t stay away forever.” Diane starts hunt and peck typing on Stuart’s wall in response to the relationship status update.

“I mostly meant that he usually likes blondes, Di,” Harry says mildly.

“Oh. Oh, well, she might not be blonde, but she’s still pretty.” Diane says as much – leaving out the blonde part – on Stuart’s wall and finally hits _Reply_ , hoping that he’ll respond soon. She misses her son, and she’s always liked to keep up with his and Annie’s lives.

Maybe this unexpected news is a sign that she’s not keeping up enough.

She resolves to call Annie after dinner, just to check in on her as well.


	11. chapter ten: and we opened up our hearts and we could change

 

**Now (April 2011): Visiting**

Stuart’s parents live in an old two-storey house on the outskirts of Santa Monica, not far from the beach. There’s already a canary-yellow car parked out the front when they arrive, and Stuart says, “Oh my God, Annie,” and has the door open almost before Maya can stop the car. Then he’s pelting across the gravel to the front door, which has opened, and throwing his arms around a brown-haired woman who’s probably in her late thirties. Too young to be his mother, it has to be his sister, and Maya suddenly realizes she doesn’t know nearly as much about Stuart’s family as he does about hers.

She gets out of the car rather more sedately, smoothing her skirt down. Stuart’s talking a mile a minute, leading Annie down the front steps, and she sees Maya and stops dead in her tracks.

“So you’re the girl who’s stolen my little brother’s heart,” she says, her accent tinged with a New York drawl.

“Don’t worry, I gave it to her,” Stuart says.

“I guess so,” Maya says at the same time, and both of them laugh.

Annie comes the rest of the way down the steps and kisses Maya’s cheek, her blue dress swishing around her knees. Maya’s glad she wore a shorter than usual (read: not floor-length) skirt; it might have been too formal. “It’s good to meet you, Maya. I bet I’ve got some stories to tell you that Stuie hasn’t brought up yet.”

“Annie,” Stuart says warningly.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll only tell her the decent ones.” Annie hooks her arm through Maya’s. “Come inside and meet Mom and Dad. Stuart, you can carry your bags, you’ll be sleeping in your old room.”

Stuart gives Maya a guilty look. “Um...”

“Oh, don’t worry, Dad put a double bed in there last year in case you ever brought someone home other than your own right hand,” Annie says gaily, and Maya can’t hold back a snort of laughter.

“ _Annie_!”

“He’s so uptight,” Annie says in what is not at all a confiding whisper to Maya, who laughs again, because even as indignant as he is at the moment Stuart’s less uptight right now than almost ever. There can’t be anything all that bad about his childhood or he’d be more nervous about Annie making good on her promise.

They wait long enough for Stuart to retrieve the suitcase and Maya’s handbag, and then Annie’s off, towing Maya in through the front door, down the hall (it has beautiful polished wooden floorboards), and into the kitchen, telling Stuart to dump the case at the foot of the stairs on the way. They pass a wall covered in photographs and Maya gets her first look at Stuart as a little boy; he has even curlier hair, if possible, and in all the formal photos where he’s with Annie she has a possessive hand on his shoulder.

“Mom! Dad! Stuart and Maya are here!” Annie calls as they enter the kitchen, and Diane looks up from scrubbing potatoes, dropping one into the sink with a splash. She has slightly darker skin than either of her children, as though she’s spent a lot of time in the sun, but Maya has the feeling there’s more to it than that. She’s whip-thin with wide dark eyes and an infectious smile, which blossoms as soon as she lays eyes on the three of them.

“Oh my, you’re even prettier in person,” is the first thing she says, and Maya blushes hard as Diane comes around the counter island to spontaneously hug her. “I can see why Stuart set his heart on you!”

“Your family’s all about the heart stuff,” Maya whispers to Stuart.

“I have a tendency to wear it on my sleeve,” Stuart whispers back. “Do I get a hug, Mom?”

“Of course you do.” Diane hugs him fiercely hard. She has flour down the front of her apron that smudges onto Stuart’s black Comic Center t-shirt (he insisted and Maya couldn’t deny him the right to sport the logo of his own business). She brushes him off the same way she’s probably been doing since he was a toddler with dirt on his shirt, and Maya snickers.

“Where’s Dad gone?” Annie asks.

“Barbecue,” Diane says. “I swear there’s enough charcoal in that thing to flash fry a buffalo, but he keeps adding more. See if you can get him to stop, will you? Maya, just a moment before you go out, please?”

Maya watches Annie and Stuart go out the back door and then turns back to Diane with some trepidation.

“Now, I think we’d best be up front about this.”

“About me being trans, you mean.”

“Is that how you say it? Just ‘trans’?”

“It’s how I say it. Or ‘transgender’.”

“Uh-huh, sure. I want you to know we do _not_ have a problem with it. Well, I guess you know Annie doesn’t already, but I wanted to tell you plain and simple so it’s not a weight on your mind.” She has a faintly Southern accent; it puts Maya in mind of Sheldon’s mother. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Maya agrees readily, and it _is_ a relief.

“Harry might look at you kinda funny, but he’s been doing that to Stuart’s girlfriends since ninth grade, and to Annie’s boyfriends since seventh, so just stand your ground. He doesn’t mean anything by it; he’s just protective.” Diane gives her a sharp look. “And so am I, so I hope you’re looking after my boy.”

“I’m doing the best I can, ma’am,” Maya says, the title slipping out unconsciously.

“Oh, away with that. Call me Diane, or Di. Hell, you can call me Mom if you want; I know you don’t have such a good relationship with your own mom these days.”

“She – when we went to India to pick up our things, she was all right,” Maya says, feeling those damnable tears pricking at her eyelids. “It’s mostly Papa and the boys who have the problem. Well, the older boys, anyway. Manoj is all right with it.”

“Sounds like you have a lot of family,” Diane says. “I’ll want to hear more about them over dinner, okay? Now you go on out there and say hi to Harry and make sure he hasn’t set the deck on fire.”

Maya, head whirling, goes outside obediently. Stuart is sitting near the barbecue, a Pepsi can already in his hand, and Annie has stolen the barbecue tongs from her father and is poking the neatly stacked charcoal with them.

“So you’re Maya Koothrappali,” Harry says. He gets her surname right first go; Stuart must have coached him. Maya can see where Stuart gets his curly hair from. “You’re not what I was expecting in a girlfriend for Stuart.”

Maya looks him in the eye. “Let me guess. It’s because I’m not an artist.”

Harry looks stunned for a second, then lets out a belly laugh and pulls her into a bear hug. “Oh, Maya, you’re a breath of fresh air. I hope you keep Stuart’s head out of the clouds once in a while.”

“I do my best,” Maya says, winking at Stuart. Annie catches the wink and laughs. Harry lets Maya go and snatches the tongs back off Annie, dunking them in a bucket of water to rinse the charcoal dust from them, and Maya feels as though she’s come home.

 

They eat out on the deck that night: potatoes in their jackets, corn on the cob, chicken and lamb and vegetables on skewers, and green salad as well. Annie insists on having Maya sit beside her like a little girl seating her friends at a tea party, and so Stuart sits across from them. Diane slides in on the bench beside him, and Harry takes the head of the table.

“So this here’s our family,” Diane says, raking vegetables and chicken off a skewer onto her plate. “Annie’s got a boyfriend in New York, but he’s spending Easter with his family. Tell us about your folks, Maya.”

“There’s not a lot to tell. My mother and father aren’t talking to me. My two older brothers aren’t talking to me. My friend Leonard’s just moved in with my sister Priya. I got to see my younger brother and sister when we went back to India to bring some things home, but they’re pretty scared of my father.”

“You can have me for a sister if you want another one,” Annie offers, slathering butter onto her potato. “Or your sister-in-law...”

“Annie,” Stuart says.

“Oh, come on, Stuart, tell me you haven’t thought about it. Maya, do Indian women wear white for weddings?”

“Actually, it’s more traditional for Indian brides to wear red.” Maya can’t believe she’s having this conversation. Speaking of red, Stuart’s face has gone bright red. Harry’s snickering to himself again. “It’s considered a lucky color in many Asian cultures. Chinese brides wear it too.”

“You’d look stunning in red, with those eyes,” Annie says in what Maya’s coming to understand is her usual direct style.

“How’s college, Annie?” Stuart asks in an attempt to change the subject.

“Oh, the usual. Cutting up cadavers, playing with nerves to see if we can make their legs jump. Sometimes they let us near actual living people and we get to put IVs in, which is a great test of fine motor control, especially with a hangover.” She sees the shocked look on her mother’s face and adds a hasty, “Joking!”

“My little sister Nanda’s studying Ayurvedic medicine,” Maya says.

Annie looks a little taken aback. “Isn’t that a little out there?”

“I’m studying planetary objects out beyond the Kuiper belt. That’s out there. Ayurvedic medicine’s got a long tradition behind it.”

“So do a lot of things that don’t work.” Annie has a dangerous look in her eyes.

“They’ve made a lot of changes. Nanda tells me they’re not using arsenic, lead or mercury any more, at least in her particular course, and she’s really been able to help some people.”

“At least it’s not homeopathy,” Annie concedes.

“Annie’s of the mind that Western medicine’s the only way to go,” Diane says.

“Not entirely. I’m just skeptical of anything that involves crystals and chanting.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that,” Maya says, even though she’s not a hundred percent sure exactly what Nanda’s course covers. “And my little brother’s doing a science course, if that makes you feel any better.”

“What sort of science?” Harry asks.

Maya’s so tempted to say something like, “Herbology,” just to make Annie freak out, but behaves herself. “He’s doing biology and organic chemistry.”

“Maya’s other sister Priya’s a lawyer,” Stuart adds.

“It sounds like you’ve got everything covered except for art,” Diane says. “No wonder you and Stuart get along so well. You balance each other out.”

“Mom,” Stuart protests. “Can we stop talking about me and Maya for five seconds?”

“Oh, hush now. Maya doesn’t mind, do you, Maya?”

“Considering you’re not disowning Stuart or beating him up, no, I don’t mind at all,” Maya says.

Diane looks shocked, and Stuart groans. “Maya, I didn’t tell them.”

“Tell us what?” Harry demands.

“I was beaten up a few weeks ago. It’s why Maya and I split up for that little while. But it’s okay, I’m healed now, and the guy who did it’s probably going to jail.”

“Only probably?”

“There’s a chance he might get off with a fine. It depends on the judge’s decision. But we’ve been told they found evidence on his computer – Google searches about the store, stuff like that – that strongly suggests he was the one who did it, and so he’ll be punished one way or another.”

“Plus President Siebert’s fired him, and is going to make him pay for damages incurred to Caltech property, since there was some vandalism involved.”

“ _Please_ tell me you got a restraining order on the guy,” Annie says.

“As soon as we knew his name,” Maya says. “We did the paperwork on the spot.”

“It won’t help if he’s really aggravated.”

“Annabel Lee, don’t be so dire,” Diane says.

“It’s your fault, Mom, you named me after a Poe poem.” Annie looks sidelong at Maya. “You’re probably lucky she didn’t call Stuart ‘Edgar’.”

“Nevermore,” Stuart says wryly.

“Did you name Stuart after a poem as well?” Maya asks.

“No, I named him after the Stuart period in history around sixteen thirty-five, when John Donne wrote poetry, because I thought ‘John’ was too boring, especially after ‘Annabel Lee’. Plus Harry wouldn’t let me name him ‘Thomas Stearns’.” She looks a little wistful. “If he’d been a girl, he would have been ‘Emily’.”

As if prompted, Annie says, “Stuie, do a poem.”

“We’re in the middle of dinner.”

“So? Do that Dickinson one.”

Maya has no idea what Annie’s talking about, or why it makes Stuart go so red, but she quickly finds out as Stuart rises to his feet, clasps his hands behind his back and, looking everywhere but at Maya until the last verse, recites:

 

            “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!  
            Were I with thee  
            Wild Nights should be  
            Our luxury!

 

            Futile – the Winds –  
            To a Heart in port –  
            Done with the Compass –  
            Done with the Chart!

 

            Rowing in Eden –  
            Ah, the Sea!  
            Might I but moor – Tonight –  
            In Thee!”

 

There’s a silence for a moment and then Annie applauds, looking at her brother with pride. Maya can’t help but clap as well, as Stuart hastily sits back down.

“You memorized that one because it was short, and you didn’t realize how the teacher was going to take it,” Annie says fondly.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“He was in eighth grade,” Diane says, and Harry laughs. “He really thought it was about boats.”

“Mo-om,” Stuart protests.

“Anyway. It’s not important. At least he knows what it means now.”

Maya knows that he knows full well what it means, the color in his cheeks and the look in his eyes gives that away. She passes no comment, though.

“‘Wild Nights’ is an easy one,” Diane says.

“‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary’...”

Diane picks up the thread from her daughter. “‘Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore’...” The two trade lines back and forth in perfect rhythm, and a cloud drifts across the late evening sun, throwing a chill across the deck, adding to the atmosphere as the two of them recite the poem right to the end.

“Thanks, Mom, Annie. I didn’t need to sleep tonight,” Stuart says.

“My students love it,” Diane says. “I teach high school English and Lit, in case Stuart didn’t tell you.”

“He did,” Maya says a little defensively, not mentioning that it was in the car on the way to Santa Monica when he was giving her a quick summary of all the salient points about his family – although he’d failed to mention just how direct Annie could be.

“So he told you I do carpentry?” Harry asks. “I made this table and the benches. Mind you, then Di goes and covers up all the fretwork with a tablecloth.”

“You’d complain if it got scratched by a steak knife,” Diane points out complacently as Maya lifts a corner of the tablecloth to look at the intricate Celtic knotwork around the edge of the table. “Anyway, there’s plenty more inside for the kids to see.”

 

After dinner Stuart and Maya go upstairs to Stuart’s old room to unpack before dessert; even though they’re only staying one night, Maya wants to hang her skirt for tomorrow up and let any wrinkles smooth out, and besides, she’s curious to see the room Stuart grew up in.

There are three bedrooms upstairs and two bathrooms including the ensuite off the master bedroom. They only look into the master bedroom briefly, but Maya sees a painstakingly done calligraphic scroll on the wall over the bed, and stops to read it:

 

            “I wonder by my troth, what thou and I  
            Did, till we loved? were we not wean’d till then?  
            But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly?  
            Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?  
            ‘Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;  
            If ever any beauty I did see,  
            Which I desired, and got, ‘twas but a dream of thee.

            And now good-morrow to our waking souls,  
            Which watch not one another out of fear;  
           For love all love of other sights controls,  
            And makes one little room an everywhere.  
            Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone;  
            Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;  
            Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.

            My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,  
            And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;  
            Where can we find two better hemispheres  
            Without sharp north, without declining west?  
            Whatever dies, was not mix’d equally;  
            If our two loves be one, or thou and I  
            Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.”

 

“That would be Donne,” Stuart says. “Calligraphy was Annie’s thing in high school.”

“It’s beautiful,” Maya says, meaning both the sentiment and the artwork.

Annie’s room is a mishmash of similar artistic pieces and charts of the skeletal and muscular systems; it looks considerably lived-in given that she’s actually living in New York.

Stuart’s room, at the end of the hall, looks out over the back garden. The walls aren’t as heavily papered as Annie’s; there are a few framed signed comics, half a dozen of Stuart’s own drawings and paintings, and that’s all. The double bed that Harry put in has a clearly homemade frame; the same pretty Celtic knotwork as on the table downstairs goes around the base and across the headboard, and it’s made up with muted blue blankets and sheets.

“I always wanted a double bed to make out on in high school,” Stuart says. “But then I always wanted a girlfriend to make out with, and I didn’t exactly get one of those either.”

Maya grins and pushes the door shut. “Shall we?”

 

Fifteen rumpled hushed giggling minutes later, Diane calls them down for dessert. Stuart looks thoroughly happy with the test-drive of his new bed, which thankfully doesn’t squeak. Maya twitches the neck of his t-shirt up to cover up the mark she left at the juncture of his throat and clavicle.

Annie gives them a knowing look when they come downstairs, but doesn’t say anything. Diane’s too busy dishing out homemade lemon tart with raspberry coulis and vanilla ice cream to remark upon how flushed either of them are; Harry just raises an eyebrow and keeps his mouth shut.

“Your home is beautiful,” Maya says, accepting her serving of tart and wondering how she’s going to manage it on top of everything else she already ate.

“It’s been in the Bloom family for six generations,” Harry says proudly. “I was lucky enough to talk Diane into moving here from New Mexico.”

“He only had to ask once,” Diane puts in, flashing her left ring finger, which has an engagement ring, wedding band, and eternity ring all fitted together. Maya admires them with a little jealousy and a smidgen of wondering what sort of ring Stuart might get her. Judging from the sudden serious expression on his face, he’s quite possibly pondering the same question.

“I was worried she wouldn’t want to leave her people.”

“Being an eighth Navajo is hardly having ‘people’, Harry. At best it gets me the cocktail party fact that I’m part Native, which makes people squirm, and my middle name’s Johona, which means ‘the sun’, and that it wasn’t after the first thing my mother saw when she looked out of our tepee.”

“My middle name’s Rajya,” Maya offers. “It means ‘hopeful’. I picked it myself.”

“I wish I’d gotten to pick my name,” Annie says, shooting her mother a death glare.

“You still can, dear; you’re old enough to legally change it,” Diane says complacently. “But you won’t, because you secretly like that your name had some thought put into it instead of just being on the top ten list in 1973.”

“I would have been _Jennifer_ ,” Annie says, wrinkling her nose.

“So how come Stuart’s middle name’s Alasdair?” Maya asks. This is more fun than she’d expected it was going to be.

“Well, actually I just liked the sound of it,” Diane admits. “But it means ‘protector’, and that’s not a bad meaning.”

“It’s better than ‘poet’s dead girlfriend’.”

“Change it to Jennifer, then,” Stuart says. “Jenny-Jen-Jen.”

“Stop it!”

“‘Neither the angels in heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee’,” Stuart quotes, and Annie starts looking for something to throw.

“Both of you knock it off right now or I’ll make you sit through the entire ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’,” Diane threatens them.

“I don’t get how you can keep all those words in your head,” Harry says.

“Practice. Eat your tart, your ice cream is melting.”

“Do you have to stick to one particular era when you’re teaching poetry, or do you get to choose?” Maya asks.

“I get specific texts for all my classes, but I often use poetry or quotes from other sources to illustrate my points and to try to get the kids to read more widely. It doesn’t always work, of course, but I feel like I’d be letting myself down if I didn’t at least try.”

“Sounds fair to me. I know I get bored if I can’t get on with my work for some reason.”

“Anyone who’s seen the amount of times you post Farmville stuff to Facebook knows that,” Stuart says.

Annie perks up at the mention of Facebook, not that she wasn’t already plenty perky, and pulls her phone out of her pocket. A few seconds later, Maya’s own phone buzzes with the notification of a new email and she pulls it out. Sure enough, Annie’s friend requested her.

“Are you sure you don’t mind reading a zillion updates about how bored I am at work and how much I love your brother?” she asks, trying to let the last part slip out casually but aware of the huge smile that appears on Diane’s face at the use of the L word.

“I consider it my duty as his big sister to make sure you’re behaving yourself,” Annie says solemnly.

Maya accepts the request and then makes a post just so she can tag Annie and Stuart in it. Diane lets out an exasperated sigh.

“All this newfangled technology... I don’t know how they make phones do everything a computer does.”

“They don’t quite do _everything_ a computer does, Mom. Phones can’t calculate complex equations or store big files or play games any more complicated than _Angry Birds_.”

“Well, my computer can’t do all that stuff either.”

“No, Mom, _you_ can’t do all that stuff. Your computer could if you wanted it to.”

“I’m happy with my cat pictures and emails, thank you.” Diane gives Stuart a chiding look. “I’m not completely past it, I’ll have you know.”

“You don’t look old enough to have a thirty-six-year-old son,” Maya says.

“Oh, Stuart, you have to keep her,” Diane says, laughing.

 

They finally crawl into bed, exhausted after their long day. With the door shut the noises from outside the room are completely silenced; the doors and walls are all thick and solid. The window is open a little way, though, and Maya can hear the distant crash of waves on the shore and, closer to the house, the soft jingle of a wind chime.

“Stuart?”

“Hmmm?” He’s already half asleep.

“Ever had sex on the beach?”

“Too sandy.”

“Blanket?”

“Too windy.”

“You’re no fun.”

Stuart just curls an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close, guiding her to press her mouth against his chest so that when he slips his hand between her legs she doesn’t make any noise and alert the rest of the household. Maya sees glow in the dark stars on the ceiling out of the corner of her eye and smiles. Some things are universal, whether you’re a scientist or an artist.

They touch each other silently, Maya moving up so her mouth can find Stuart’s, rocking against each other’s hands in the dark until both of them come. Maya can’t keep from making a little gasping noise into Stuart’s mouth and he hums with pleasure in return.

 

Diane looks particularly pleased with herself when they come downstairs for breakfast the next morning; she shoos Maya, Stuart, and Annie out into the garden while she’s cooking and Maya quickly realizes why when she spots a glimmer of shiny foil atop the stack of charcoal briquettes near the barbecue.

“Oh my God, I think she’s set up an Easter egg hunt,” she says, going over to look. Sure enough it’s a chocolate egg in blue foil. Stuart spots the next one wedged into the wind chime and then it’s on, the three of them acting just like the kids that Diane’s been referring to them as, running around the yard from one end to the other.

“There’s only a dozen!” Diane calls out of the kitchen window.

The three of them pool their findings and count the eggs to discover that they’ve only found eleven; their search continues until Stuart happens to look up and spot the last egg balanced over the lintel of the back door.

For all the festivals she went to growing up in India, Maya thinks she’s never has as much fun as this simple tradition’s brought her. She wonders how long it’s been since Diane last arranged an Easter egg hunt, but prudently decides not to ask her.

 

Maya feels like they spend the entire day eating. She’s just glad they decided to take Monday off as well; Caltech’s closed to the students for spring break and she put in an application for leave like most of the rest of the academic staff. She’s pretty sure Sheldon will be the only one working. Stuart’s a little worried about leaving the store closed so long, but with Alan Masterton still cooling his heels in the California State Prison (the last she heard he was trying to make a plea bargain, despite the case not having come up in court yet), they at least don’t have vandalism to worry about.

She’s thinking about Masterton after lunch when her phone rings.

“Sorry to disturb you on the holiday weekend, Miz Koothrappali, but we’ve set the date for Mr. Masterton’s court appearance, and we had to let you know.” The date the court clerk names is just after they’ll be back from Philadelphia, and she agrees readily. Siebert will understand if she has to take the time off work; in fact, when she asks, she discovers he’s going to have to be there as well, as well as anyone else affected by Masterton.

“I’ll bring my photo album,” Stuart says when she tells him.

“Do you want us to come for support?” Annie asks. “I can fly back over...”

“No, but I promise I’ll Skype you.”

“You’d better. You know what happens when you don’t keep your promises.”

Maya winces. “Is it anything like what Missy does to Sheldon when he pisses her off?”

“No, she just short-sheets my bed,” Stuart says.

“And half the time he doesn’t even notice.”

 

Stuart gives her a chocolate heart when they’re in company; in private, he pulls out his laptop and brings up the Pleasure Chest website, leaving her to look at his wish list while he showers. There are some standard accoutrements on there; she’s privately surprised that she never thought to buy handcuffs herself, and admires the black and red leather wrist restraints that the site offers, as well as the matching rubber and leather flogger. She likes the sound of the stinging pain the description of the flogger suggests.

Then she scrolls a little further down Stuart’s wish list and decides she needs a very cold shower, because apparently he was more serious about being on the receiving end of anal than she thought he was. She’s not sure how well a strap-on would work for her, but the product description says it works for anyone, and she has no doubt that she can figure out how to make it work; if not now, then definitely after her surgery.

She allows herself five seconds to think about it, and then goes through the wish list, transferring everything to the shopping cart. It’ll do a lot of damage to her credit card, but the way her heart’s pounding and her skin feels tight all over makes her positive it will be a good long-term investment. Maybe Stuart needs to start selling toys out of the back room at the Comics Center so they can get tester products. The mental image of crops and paddles and lingerie hanging alongside the manga and hentai is a good one, and she’s still giggling when Stuart comes into the room, wearing one towel around his waist and rubbing his hair dry with another.

“What’s so funny? You’re not laughing at my – hey, did you order something?”

“Maybe,” Maya says coyly. “You’ll just have to wait until it arrives to find out?”

“Come on, what did you order?”

Maya shakes her head firmly, closes the browser, and orders him not to check the list again. She doesn’t often order him around, but he kisses her hand and promises not to look.

“Don’t get dressed, either,” Maya says after a moment. “Spread your towel out on the bed and lie face down.”

Stuart gives her a suspicious look. “Maya, what are you planning?”

“If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise,” Maya says, and goes to have her shower.

 

Stuart’s lying obediently on the bed when she gets back, and she slides the lock across on the door just in case. She starts by massaging his shoulders and the back of his neck, chasing her hands with little kisses that make him shiver. She can feel him relaxing under her hands and works her way down his body to stop at his waist, rubbing his lower back in slow circles that make him sigh.

“You were being so bossy I thought there was more going on than this,” Stuart says lazily.

“I’m not finished with you yet,” Maya retorts, moving down to work her way up his legs. He has long thin feet the way he has long fingers; she doesn’t spend much time on them because he’s ticklish and that’s not what she’s going for. (Although it might be an interesting torture method one day.) His legs relax apart as she works her way up, although his ass tenses a little when she trails one finger up his inner thigh.

“Just relax.”

“Maya...”

“Sssh.”

They brought lube and condoms just in case, although Stuart said from the beginning he wasn’t sure about having sex under his parents’ roof (she’s learned that his first time was in the backseat of his first car, but hasn’t asked questions beyond that). She uncaps the lube and warms it in her palm, and then drizzles it from her cupped hand down the cleft of his buttocks. Stuart squirms as she runs her finger through it, slow strokes up and down that linger a little more at his entrance each time. He starts rocking his hips in uneven little bursts and the first time her fingertip presses in more than a whisper-touch he lets out a needy little whimper and rises up in earnest. She can’t see his face to know what’s going on there and leans over to see his eyes tight shut and his mouth open, his breathing rapid.

“Forget the safeword stuff. If you tell me to stop, I’ll stop, this isn’t something to mess around with.”

“Don’t stop, Maya. Please.”

Maya squeezes more lube out onto her fingers and rubs him a little more before slowly, carefully easing one fingertip in to the first knuckle. Stuart catches his breath sharply.

“Oh. God. Oh.”

“Hold still,” Maya says, and she’s seeking out that hot spot inside him, and he’s not holding still but she finds what she’s looking for anyway. She makes circles as best as she can with the pad of her fingertip and Stuart literally bites the pillow to muffle the noises he’s making. Maya debates adding a second finger but Stuart bucks up against her hand and proves that she was right to get him to put the towel down as he comes copiously onto it.

“I think we can leave that one on the ‘try again’ list,” Stuart says, spitting out the pillow. He’s left a mouth mark on the pillowslip.

Maya pulls her hand gently away and wipes it on the towel. “Only if you’re a good boy.”

“Yes, mistress.”

The nickname makes her feel strangely warm inside. She’s never really thought of herself as the dominant type, but Stuart seems to flick that switch inside her, and maybe she needs to rethink her stance on such things. On the bright side, she’s considered her sexuality to be fluid ever since her first encounter with Haroon and Tanvir, so it’s not too late for more changes.

 

The next morning she finds herself reluctant to go back to Pasadena. She’s really enjoyed herself, and she sort of doesn’t want to go back to work; she’s not used to having a weekend off where she doesn’t see Sheldon at some point and get asked work-related questions. Talking about work is vastly different when one’s conversational companion doesn’t whip out a notebook and start scribbling down ideas during the discussion.

She gets hugs goodbye from all three of them; so does Stuart, who hangs on to Annie as long as he can.

“I can’t believe you drove all the way here,” he says.

Annie shrugs. “It took a few days, but I had a bunch of lectures downloaded to listen to. Hey, Maya, when you go to Philly, if you have time you should come up and visit. It’s only a couple hours drive and I’d be happy to come get you.”

“I guess that depends on what Sarah wants to do and how long the consult takes and stuff,” Maya says. “But I’d really love to.”

“It would be great if you could do that. I’m not exactly going to be able to go... I can’t leave the store again and while Faisal’s being generous, he can’t afford plane tickets for everyone,” Stuart says with an awkward little shrug. “It’d be nice to know that Maya had family there.”

“Family?” Diane says.

“Crazy wannabe future sister-in-law,” Stuart amends, and everyone laughs; Stuart smiles a little and Maya couldn’t be happier to have him as her boyfriend and the Blooms as his family. The thought of having them as _her_ family is pretty happy-making as well. She tries to stop that thought in its tracks, but it nestles into her brain and makes a home there; she keeps examining it on and off as they drive home. The drive takes less than an hour but that’s plenty of time for her to think.

“Stuart?”

“Yeah?”

“Where do you see this relationship going?”

“Well, frequently to bed...”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this to _you_ of all people, but seriously.”

“All I know is I want to be with you as long as possible,” Stuart answers without pausing to think. “Whether that means forever or until you decide having a boyfriend whose idea of a good birthday party is a handful of friends playing Munchkin and Singstar and drinking is a drag, I’ll take what I can get.”

“Dude, that’s hardly a drag of a birthday party.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

They’re both quiet for the next few miles until Stuart speaks up again. “Speaking of birthdays... I kind of have a request for mine.”

“Yeah?”

“I’d really like it if we did a couples cosplay for Comic-Con this year.” He looks sideways at her. “It’d give you a chance to road test your Inara costume.”

“In _public_?”

“It does involve _some_ clothing. I can tell from the sewing you’ve been doing. If it’s good enough for my Halloween party, it’s good enough for the world.”

“But Stuart, all the people... what if they think it’s awful?”

“They _won’t_ ,” Stuart says with an unexpected fierceness. “And if anyone dares to say anything to you, I’ll...”

“You’ll what?”

“Probably back off and call security, actually,” Stuart admits.

“Well...”

“Please?”

“I guess it’s a given that we’re going, since you’ve got a booth organized.”

“Yeah, I paid for the space out of last year’s takings. It’s worth it for the exposure.” Stuart sounds a little defensive.

“I’m not questioning your business practices, I’m just saying.” Maya thinks about it for a minute. She really wants the Inara costume to be more of a private thing for her and Stuart... but the idea of walking around and getting attention from other people, and maybe even entering the Masquerade, is really appealing.

“I sort of want to show you off,” Stuart says, and that clinches it.

“Okay.”

Even after they get home and she gets online to find out that they need to hustle if they want to apply to be in the Masquerade, she still wants to do it. She mentions the Masquerade to Stuart and he looks temporarily terrified, but acquiesces, and Maya starts figuring out his Mal costume that very night, tired from the weekend as she is.

 

 

**Then (December 2010): Quantifying**

 Sheldon doesn’t care about Raj’s new persona, not because he’s heartless, but simply because it doesn’t matter to him. He does worry a little bit that he’s going to have to start specifying that Raj is a girl who is his friend but not his girlfriend. Amy tells him that if he and Raj get close enough that anyone mistakes them for a couple, she’s going to whip his ass.

Amy cares about Raj’s transition. She cares a _lot_. Sheldon wonders if she’s jealous that Penny wants to spend more time with Raj now than before, or whether she’s just jealous that Penny’s taking any time away from her at all, even though her own level of interactions with Penny remain the same. At least, they remain the same as far as Sheldon can tell, and he may not be an expert but he’s at least capable of counting how many hours Amy spends with Penny per week, and while it fluctuates a little, the average remains the same. But then the time Amy spends making Skype calls to Saudi Arabia goes up (Sheldon makes this assumption based on comments made by Amy), as does the amount of time Raj spends with electrodes stuck to her head.

Howard’s attitude toward Raj noticeably shifts as well; he simultaneously distances himself and attempts to get closer to her, which is just downright baffling. Although Sheldon has to admit that the further along Raj progresses with her transition, the closer she gets to the feminine ideal of beauty. She’ll never attain the classic Indian beauty of Madhuri Dixit, or Raj’s own heroine Aishwarya Rai, but she has – he thinks, anyway – a very sensuous mouth and pretty eyes.

Raj as a woman has a little more mystery to her than Raj as a man, but overall nothing’s really changed, in the same way that nothing really changes when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly; it’s a natural change of state that’s supposed to happen, and so it’s unimportant in the grand scheme of things, except to the butterfly and to those people who admire butterflies.

(And if he was paying attention to his own thoughts beyond simply comparing and contrasting Raj and Bollywood actresses and butterflies, he’d realize he’s a little attracted to Raj now for her looks and her ephemeral changing self, in the same way he’s a little attracted to Penny for her beauty and wit and willingness to stand up to him. He’s not, though, so the unusual level of arousal that strikes him the night Raj first wears a skirt over to play Halo takes him by complete surprise.)

The number one thing that Sheldon notices that can be readily counted is how much time Stuart spends watching Raj when they go to the comic book store, because as far as he can tell Stuart only takes his eyes off her if he has to attend to another customer. He circulates the store the way he usually does, but even if he’s talking to someone else his eyes are wherever Raj is. This is how Sheldon Cooper manages to be the first to know about Stuart’s crush on Raj before Stuart himself figures it out. But he’s pretty sure it’s a social faux pas to bring such things up, so he doesn’t.

As far as he can tell, the best thing to do in this situation is to just go on treating Raj like normal while taking her altered gender into account, so he doesn’t pass any comments when Raj goes on girls’ nights out with Penny and the others. He does wonder whether it’s socially awkward for them to take a new person into their friendship circle; he’s already seen how hard it was for them to accept Priya, although that might be for different reasons; he’s not privy to every single conversation between Leonard and Priya despite the thinness of the wall between their bedrooms making most of them, and other things he’d rather not hear, audible.

The main thing is that he still has his research partner and, to his surprise, he’s even happier that he still has his friend. For all the value he puts on hard work and diligent study and knowledge, he’s learned that friends have their place in his life.

All the same, Raj has yet to convince him that friendship is, as according to the popular children’s cartoon, magic. No matter how many times she tells him he’d love Twilight Sparkle, he just can’t make the leap from _Batman_ to _My Little Pony_.


	12. chapter eleven: compassion in your hands

**Now (May 2011): Consulting**

The court hearing comes around faster than expected, but Maya’s prepared, and so is Stuart. They have their witnesses, Siebert’s coming in to speak on behalf of Caltech, and they’re ready for anything.

What it turns out they’re not ready for is Masterton making a full confession, complete with an apparently heartfelt apology, while his lawyer grins knowingly. Masterton admits everything, along with his “misplaced anger” due to “not advancing within the college as fast as I’d hoped”.

The judge, who is sixty if he’s a day and looks ready to move to Florida, listens to all of this, listens to Maya’s lawyer (not Priya – conflict of interest – but a scarily competent man that she’s recommended), and ultimately announces the sentence: three years’ jail time plus a ten thousand dollar fine.

“For what?” Masterton explodes.

“The vandalism caused at Caltech.”

“But it was all fixed! It was nothing!”

“Your Honor, if I may?” Siebert glares at Masterton. “It wasn’t ‘nothing’. You caused a good deal of distress to my employees, and wasted quite a lot of man hours – and woman hours – of time spent undoing the mess you caused.”

“He’s no woman. He’s a freak,” Masterton spits, faux-apology forgotten.

“Fifteen thousand dollars, Mr. Masterton. Would you like to try for twenty, or are you quite finished?” The judge glares over the top of his glasses, and Masterton subsides. His lawyer facepalms discreetly. “No? Good. Case closed.”

“You’re going to hell,” Masterton yells as he’s led out.

“Hindus don’t believe in hell,” Maya yells back.

“Ms. Koothrappali, please don’t make me shut you up,” the judge says wearily.

They get out to the lobby, which becomes hug central, and Maya ends up with Siebert’s arms around her.

“You should take the extra five thousand,” he says. “Put it toward your surgery.”

“I couldn’t do that! Caltech needs it.”

“I’d feel guilty. You deserve something for the mental abuse, and any hospital bills that your partner has outstanding.”

It’s true; even with the medical insurance Stuart’s job affords him, they still owe a few hundred dollars, and Maya’s credit card could stand to be paid off after her recent shopping binge, the results of which arrived a few days ago, but they haven’t looked at yet, saving it for after the hearing.

It looks as though they’ll have plenty to celebrate now.

 

Stuart’s eyes light up when Maya brings the box out and he recognizes the return address. “Maya, did you buy the whole store?”

“Not quite,” Maya says.

His eyes light up even more when she brings the cuffs out, and he insists on pausing the exploration of the box to put one on her left wrist, pulling the leather snug against her skin. It feels somehow more serious than the satin pieces he’s used to tie her in the past.

“Maybe we should try these one at a time and work our way through the box,” Stuart suggests.

“I’d rather you got to see everything in the box before you decide that,” Maya says, and Stuart’s eyes go wide, his breath catching in his throat.

“Maya – you didn’t—”

“Oh, look what we have here,” Maya says, extracting the flogger from the box. Stuart pulls it from her hand immediately and gestures for her to roll onto her stomach. She’s only wearing a camisole and short shorts, and when Stuart trails the ends of the flogger’s tails along her thighs she trembles.

The first stroke is a light flick, but she can feel the potential of the combined rubber and leather cords, and when Stuart brings it down harder it makes her yelp. The sensation is quite unlike the plain suede flogger; it’s more spread out and sharper and more delicate all at once.

Stuart wields the flogger with dedicated concentration, alternating between hard strokes that really sting and dragging the cords across her skin to make her shiver. She’s writhing and pleading by the time he finally stops. He grabs her cuff and pulls her back onto her side, reaching down to rub his palm across the front of her short shorts and bring her to a quick, helpless climax.

She feels oddly languid afterward, but not so much so that she can’t go back to the box. The next item out is massage oil, and she pushes the box out of the way so that she can get Stuart to stretch out on his stomach and start rubbing his back, hands moving slickly over his skin. He’s wound up, but not so much that she can’t unwind him, which is good; she wants him relaxed for what she’s planning to do to him.

The look on his face when she pulls the last item out of the box is priceless; anticipation and desire and a little fear all mixed together.

“We can save this for another time if you want to use the cuffs on me instead,” Maya says.

“No... I want this.” He rolls onto his back to help Maya put the harness on and hook the strap-on into it; it’s easier with the two of them figuring it out.

Maya feels strange looking down seeing her new cock jutting out. Suddenly the piece of flesh between her legs that she was born with seems disconnected from her, tucked away as it is to accommodate this real cock. It feels somehow right. She slips the mini-vibe that came with it into place but doesn’t activate it yet.

It only takes one gentle push to persuade Stuart to roll over onto his stomach. He reaches up and clings to the head of the bed and spreads his legs, and Maya feels a rush of love at how willing he is to let her take control. Her ass still stings from when he was flogging her and now he’s lying there waiting for her to... oh, God. She has to stop and take her time warming the lube in her hand so she can focus. She has the feeling this will be another multi-orgasmic night; the harness is rubbing between her legs in an interesting way.

She gets the lube out; her hand lands on her butt plug while she’s finding it and she decides _what the hell_ and gets it out.

“Maya?”

“Let me just do this first.” She reaches behind herself with the lube and then the plug; it slips into place and she sighs. This is probably the most hardware she’s ever played with in one session and it feels strange but good.

Stuart is tense under her hands to begin with, but she works him open patiently, and he gets very close to coming; she has to stop more than once to keep him from coming too soon. She doesn’t want it happening before she has a chance to be inside him.

Finally she slicks up her cock with more lube and positions herself between Stuart’s spread thighs, starting the mini-vibe up. She pushes into him a little too fast and he hisses with pain, fingers tightening on the head of the bed.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh God. Yes. Just. Go slow.”

She goes slow. She rocks against him, his ass curving against the front of her hips, pressing into and into and into him until he cries out from the full feeling. She can feel her own orgasm coiling inside her and goes still for a moment to try to hold it back. Stuart whines in protest and pushes back against her and Maya snakes one hand under him, pulling him up onto his knees so she can stroke his cock while she moves in him. His knuckles have gone white and he starts whispering her name on every sliding thrust, getting louder and louder until he’s incapable of coherent words and is just gasping breathlessly.

Maya can’t keep going slowly any more. She speeds up, feeling the plug inside her shift, and comes shuddering, moaning Stuart’s name. He pulses into her hand, crying out, “ _Maya_!” loud enough for the neighbors to bang on the wall. He collapses beneath her and she slides out of him, making him whine again as her cock rubs against heated nerves on the way out.

She gets rid of the harness quickly and pulls Stuart into her arms, holding him while he comes down. He’s got a spaced-out look on his face and she can completely understand why because she feels the way he looks.

“I never in my life thought I’d do anything like this,” he says softly after his breathing returns to normal. “I never thought I’d be in a relationship this... I just can’t believe I let you do that to me.”

“In a good way?”

“In a very good way.” He hooks one finger into the top of her camisole, the only piece of her clothing that stayed on, and pulls her in for a scorching messy kiss that leaves her breathless.

“If you think this was good, wait until you get to see Inara at Comic-Con. I always book a hotel room with a big bed,” Maya murmurs.

“I usually sleep in my car, so anything’s an improvement.”

“The important part’s the costume. You know if we enter the Masquerade I’ll only have worn it a little while, so I’ll be all fresh after my shower, and we can turn the hotel room into a pretty good boudoir.”

“Which costume exactly were you planning on making? I saw the red fabric, so...”

“You’ll get to see it when we take photos to send in with our application,” Maya says.

“Are you going to have to resew it if I tear it off you?” Stuart asks with a lazy smile.

“Do that and you’ll be going as naked Mal.”

“I don’t think I quite have the build to pull that off.”

“Mal after a year on short rations?”

“Stop it.”

Eventually they manage to separate long enough to clean up. Maya separates the strap-on and vibe from the harness and hangs it brazenly over the foot of the bed, taking the accessories into the bathroom to clean. She still has her plug in and slips it out, going a little dizzy at the feeling. Stuart follows her in and starts wiping himself down with a washcloth; Maya catches his hand before he can do it all and drops to her knees to gently suck him clean. He squirms as her mouth moves over the over-sensitive flesh, but lets her do it, and then pins her against the vanity and returns the favor, his tongue lapping at her in a way that makes her wish he could push it inside her.

They’re both exhausted when they fall into bed again, after Maya strips off the messy sheet and replaces it. The sheets don’t match now but she doesn’t care. She’s too overwhelmed by what they’ve just done, by the events in court, and by the fact of her impending surgical consultation to worry about bed sheets overly much. They’re clean, and that’s what matters.

Stuart falls asleep almost immediately, arm draped across Maya’s stomach. Maya kisses the top of his head and grins at the thought that she’s fucked him senseless. She’s never felt so good about sex since she started dating him.

“I love you,” she whispers, even though he’s asleep, and his arm tightens around her as though he’s heard her anyway.

 

Amy, it turns out, is a terrible travel companion. Maya finally has to feign sleep to get her to stop chattering. She’s pretty sure Amy’s just nervous about flying, but Maya has her own set of nerves to deal with. Apart from anything else, she’s going to meet Sarah in person for the first time.

They have a layover in Denver for an hour and Maya calls Annie to tell her when they expect to reach Philadelphia. Annie sounds tired but enthusiastic and promises to meet them at the airport.

“You could save on hotels by staying with me,” she says.

“Do you have room?”

“Well, I have a queen bed and a fold-out couch.”

Maya can’t picture Amy on a fold-out couch, but nor can she picture her sharing a bed with Annie. She covers the phone and asks.

“Hmmm. Does Annie have the same youthful good looks as her brother?”

Maya uncovers the phone. “Amy says yes. I’ll ask Sarah when we see her at the airport.”

“I can take the time off studying and show you around. I could really use the break.”

“Didn’t you just get off spring break?”

“The studying never stops, baby sis. I’ll see you when you land in Philly.” Annie hangs up without giving Maya time to react to the nickname, but she’s sure the smile on her face must look perfectly idiotic.

“I wish I had a few electrodes right now, because whatever’s going on in your head must be positively fascinating,” Amy says with perfect sincerity.

“She called me ‘baby sis’.”

“You have a lot of people who call you sister.”

“Not ones who might really be my sister-in-law one day.”

Amy looks at Maya’s left hand as though she’s expecting an engagement ring to have materialized there. “Has Stuart proposed without you telling us? Because I think that’s a breach of the friendship code.”

“No, but he also didn’t run screaming when we were talking about Indian bridal customs at Easter,” Maya says, and Amy lets out a squeak and hugs her.

Maya decides maybe Amy’s not such bad company after all.

 

They touch down in Philadelphia to discover that Annie’s already found and befriended Sarah, possibly with some sort of Jedi mind powers – or maybe a Vulcan mind-meld, since Sarah’s into _Star Trek_. Whatever it is, they’re sitting in the arrivals area chattering away so intently that Maya gets right up behind Annie and covers her eyes with her hands before they notice.

“Guess who?”

“Maya!” Annie twists around and hugs her hard. It’s nothing compared to the way Sarah hugs her, though; she has gorgeous soft curves in all the right places and Maya wants to use her cleavage as a pillow and just take a nice long nap. They cling to each other like long-lost sisters, barely aware of Amy and Annie introducing themselves to each other without Maya to do it for them.

 

The four of them do end up driving up to New York – Annie’s place is on Staten Island and overlooks the water. There’s some squabbling over the second spot in the bed, because Maya thinks Amy should take it as (proxy) funder of the trip, and Amy thinks Maya should take it because she and Annie are practically sisters, and Sarah sides with Amy, so Maya ends up carrying her bag into her would-be sister’s bedroom.

There’s a watercolor of the sea on one wall; it could be the sea anywhere, but Maya suspects it’s Stuart’s work, and sure enough he’s signed the bottom corner of it, where the waves lace white foam across the pale, pale sand.

“He’s a beautiful artist,” Annie says unnecessarily.

“He’s just beautiful in general,” Maya says, and Annie pretends to gag. “And so are you, so shut up.”

“I’m glad I got Mom’s hair. I don’t know what I’d do with all those curls.”

“Live with it,” Maya says, pulling out a lock of her own wavy black hair and letting it spring back into place.

“Do you have wi-fi?” Amy calls from the living room, and Annie goes out to help her set up her laptop. That’s the least of the electrical accoutrements Amy brought; Maya’s always vaguely expecting her to bring out a violet wand one day and try zapping her just to see what happens. She looked up violet wands after Jess mentioned them and decided they were not for her, but she thinks they would appeal to Amy’s fondness for electrical measurements. She’s pretty sure that if Amy and Sheldon ever do have sex, one of them will be attached to an EEG machine.

She banishes that thought very, very firmly from her mind, and goes out to see what the others are up to.

 

Three hours and a lot of EEG scribbling later, Amy finally lets Sarah up from her chair and starts transcribing notes out of her notebook onto her laptop. Maya’s giving Annie a pop quiz using an old exam paper; the answers are missing but they have a small library’s worth of textbooks to consult, and Maya knows enough random Latin to be sure of most of Annie’s answers anyway.

“The next time I sit still that long, I want to be tied up and get an orgasm out of it,” Sarah grumbles, rubbing her ass and disappearing into the bathroom before anyone can come up with a response. If there is a response to a statement like that. (Maya is pretty sure “Amen, sister” wouldn’t be appropriate in front of her boyfriend’s sister.)

“I think it’s time to go out for dinner,” Annie says after a minute’s silence mourning the loss of any dignity any of them had left.

She takes them to a bar and they eat onion rings and fries and burgers. Amy looks like she’s going to faint at how rowdy the place is without Penny there to cling to, but loosens up after her second glass of wine. Annie nobly declares herself the designated driver and sticks to diet Coke. Maya has one grasshopper and then switches to soda; she doesn’t want a hangover the next day, particularly not when they have a long drive ahead of them back to Philadelphia. She’s looking forward to just settling down with Stuart after all this traveling, and says so.

“So you want to settle down with my brother?” Annie asks.

“We _are_ living together,” Maya points out.

“I wish Sheldon had let me move in with him,” Amy says.

“But what if Faisal found out? You’re not even supposed to be seeing Sheldon. Doesn’t he think you two have broken up?”

“There’s nothing _to_ break up. Sheldon is a boy and he’s my friend, but – however unfortunately – he’s not my boyfriend.”

“Get a girlfriend,” Sarah suggests. “They’re fun.”

“Thank you for the suggestion, but I’m afraid the one woman who I’d love to consider for the position simply doesn’t swing that way.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Amy means Penny, which is good, because they left the rocket scientists back in Pasadena.

“Do _you_ swing that way?” Sarah asks.

“I’m honestly not sure. Up until meeting Penny and seeing how open she is about her sexuality, I was quite certain sex held no interest for me. But the way she talks about it makes it sound worthwhile, and I can... visually appreciate men and women,” Amy says.

“Bi-curious, maybe?” Annie says.

“Or pan-curious,” Sarah adds.

“She could be pan-romantic and still asexual. Or demisexual,” Maya says.

“Now you’re making words up,” Amy says, gulping her wine.

“You could be a what.”

“A _what_ what, Sarah?”

“Just a what. As in, ‘are you a lesbian or what? I’ve been searching for a sexual identity, and now you’ve named it for me. I’m a what’,” Sarah explains.

“The word ‘what’ sounds strange now,” Amy says after pausing to think it over.

“It’s from a book. My sister – the Australian one – keeps quoting it. She thinks it’s hilarious.”

“Is she a what?” Annie asks, grinning.

“No, she’s a pansexual polyamorous pagan with a penchant for pashing people platonically,” Sarah says. “And she likes alliteration.”

“‘Pashing’?” Annie and Maya ask.

“Aussie slang for kissing. She hates the term but it was the only one she could think of that started with ‘p’.”

“Pecking?”

“I get the feeling there’s usually more to it than that.” Sarah zips her lip on the topic after that and they start talking about travel plans for the following day.

 

At eleven o’clock that night Maya’s woken by Sarah wriggling into bed with her and Annie.

“Amy bites,” she explains in a whisper.

“Was she having a nightmare? Just stroke her hair and she’ll go back to sleep.”

“I tried that. That was when she bit me.”

It’s lucky that Annie has a big bed.

 

The drive down to the clinic the next day is a tense one. Amy sits up front with Annie, apparently none the worse for wear for her bad dream-filled sleep. Maya and Sarah sit in back, holding hands. Sarah’s praying, mostly under her breath; Maya catches the words “Goddess” and “Hekate” and prudently doesn’t interrupt her. For her own part, she’s not Hindu enough to invoke any particular deity, but for some reason Durga, the many-armed demon slayer who rides a tiger, comes to mind. Maya feels like she might need a fierce goddess to look out for her today, just in case. Then again, there’s always Kali Ma, the Dark Mother; despite her association with death, Maya could use her protection.

“Sarah,” she whispers, squeezing her sister’s hand.

“Mmmm?”

“Could you add a couple more deities to your prayers?” Maya explains who she means and Sarah gives her a bright smile.

“There’s always the Goddess chant.”

A few minutes later all four of them are chanting, “Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hekate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna,” in unison. Amy looks particularly uplifted. Annie looks like she’s torn between chanting and letting rip with a few choice words about religion versus science, but since her one potential ally is getting into the rhythm of the chant, plus she has a witch and a sometime-Hindu in her back seat, she just goes with the flow.

Apart from any positive spiritual benefit it has, the chant cuts through the palpable tension surrounding Sarah and Maya. Although they’re on their way to what should be a happy event, and both confident of a positive outcome, their nerves are running high nonetheless.

Plus, they can only chant so long before they have to go back to pointing out landmarks to each other that they haven’t seen before. Sarah’s from Minnesota, so she hasn’t exactly spent a lot of time in this neck of the woods either, and she’s also checking her watch every few minutes to make sure they’re running on schedule. Fortunately, she’s not as neurotic about it as Sheldon.

 

Dr Rumer’s office is a safe space, or at least it feels that way to Maya. She lets Sarah go in first and sits in the waiting area with Annie and Amy, who are back on the subject of Sheldon and his status, or lack thereof, as Amy’s boyfriend. Annie’s of the opinion that unless Faisal’s going to actually act upon the whole fiancé thing he shouldn’t get to dictate who Amy does and doesn’t see; Amy’s agreeing reluctantly, torn between her loyalty to the promise she made and her clear affection for Sheldon.

“Also, I don’t want to risk losing funding for Maya and Sarah,” she says, and Maya looks up from a photo album of the work Dr Rumer’s done and smiles at her. She’s feeling too shaky to say anything, even a thank you.

She loses track of how long it is before Sarah comes out, but when she does she’s smiling widely. Maya gets called in and immediately wishes she’d gone to the bathroom first.

Dr Rumer asks her a lot of questions about her medical history, most of which she can answer off the top of her head, having gotten some idea of what to expect from the girls on Fetlife. She’s weighed, her height and waist measured, and then she has to shed her clothes for a more detailed examination.

“You’re lucky to have such good breast development, both of you,” the doctor says, touching one of the faded stretch marks. “A lot of trans women get uneven development, or not as much as they’d like... we can do breast augmentation in addition to the genital surgery if you want it, though.”

“I like them the way they are.”

(She likes the way Stuart likes them; she likes the way he can spread his fingers out across each breast and cup the weight of them and everything else, but mostly she likes how they look for herself.)

“Well, let me just see here...”

Maya closes her eyes as the doctor touches her down there; it’s impersonal and there are gloves involved, but somehow it feels all wrong. It’s not as if she expects it to feel good like when Stuart touches her; she’s trained him to only touch where she’s comfortable, and Dr Rumer has to do more than that.

“We usually refer to the surgery as gender reassignment surgery, but if you have preferred terminology, let me know and we’ll use that instead.”

“Gender confirmation surgery,” Maya says, trying to ignore the fact that she’s having this conversation with a latex glove poking around her genitals.

“That’s exactly what Sarah said. As it happens, I can _confirm_ that you’re definitely going to be a good candidate to work with.” Her hands go away and Maya is profoundly relieved. Caring and compassionate as Dr Rumer clearly is, given what she does for a living, Maya’s just not comfortable with being touched so intimately by a stranger. She’s just glad that the next time she’ll be completely out of it.

“There’s just one small problem.”

Maya feels her heart plummet. “What?”

“I can only fit one of you into my schedule for August. The other will have to wait until October. I’ll call Sarah in and the two of you can discuss it, once you’re dressed.”

Maya gets dressed in a hurry. Sarah comes back in looking a little puzzled and Dr Rumer leaves the two of them alone.

“She only has space for one of us in her schedule for August. One of us can go then and one of us has to wait until October,” Maya says.

“You go first,” Sarah says immediately. “You’re the one paying for all this, sort of.”

“I’d love to, but... you’ve been waiting longer. It should be you.”

“Maya, I can’t let you put me ahead of you. I can wait an extra couple of months. I’m used to it.”

“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t have to wait any longer than necessary.” Maya folds her arms. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Sarah folds her arms right back. “We could toss a coin.”

“No way. That’s not fair.”

“It’s random chance, of course it’s fair.”

Maya just opens the door and calls, “Dr Rumer, Sarah’s taking the August appointment,” to which Annie and Amy respond by giving her odd stares and Sarah responds by bursting into tears and throwing her arms around Maya.

 

They were supposed to be flying back out from Philly the next day, but Annie got on the phone while Maya was in having her consult and talked the airline into switching their connection to Newark, insisting that everyone come back to her apartment for another night to celebrate. How she managed this, Maya doesn’t know, but after her second glass of sparkling wine, she doesn’t care. They’re eating Chinese takeout and watching a moderately sappy movie called _Now and Then_ that Annie says is one of her favorites, and Maya announces halfway through that she doesn’t want to go home, she just wants to stay with Annie until October.

“Stuart would miss you,” Annie points out.

“You’d miss Comic-Con,” Sarah says pragmatically.

“Sheldon would be furious if you missed Halo night that often,” Amy adds.

“Oh, then that settles it,” Maya says, stretching out on the fold-out bed and sipping her wine. She’s only vaguely aware of putting the glass down on the coffee table at some point when she gets too tired to hold it; the next thing she knows she’s being woken up by Amy thrashing in her sleep.

It turns out Sarah was right about Amy biting.

 

The next day is bittersweet. Annie drives them to Newark. Maya and Sarah spend the trip discussing Sarah’s surgery date in August; her wife Lizzie won’t be able to be there, so Maya says she’ll come over to be company while Sarah’s recovering, and Sarah promises the same for Maya’s surgery date in October. Sarah has actually had surgery consults at a few different gender clinics but settled on Dr Rumer as her personal preference from word of mouth before she had yesterday’s consultation. She says intuition made it feel right and Maya’s not inclined to argue with her; she’s seen images of the wonders Dr Rumer’s surgery can work.

Even though it’s only a few months until they’ll see each other again, Maya and Sarah cry at the airport, which sets Annie off. Amy doesn’t cry, but she does take notes, which is a little disconcerting. There’s a lot of hugging. Annie makes Maya promise to hug Stuart for her, which is really not all that arduous a task, and finally the flight to Los Angeles is boarding and Maya and Amy have to leave the other two.

It’s a long flight home. Amy spends most of it typing up her notes. Maya spends most of it dozing and daydreaming about what sex will be like when she has a vagina and clitoris, which means she has to lock herself in the bathroom for fifteen minutes and masturbate until she comes twice before she can settle back down in her seat. She doesn’t always come more than once, but it happens more often than not if she tries, and she puts it down to hormones.

She uses the layover time in Denver to call Stuart and tell him when they expect to get back to Pasadena, and he promises to make her something for a late dinner, since the airline food isn’t all that great and it’s too early for her to have it at the airport. Plus the airport food is all overpriced. The main appeal is having something made by him for her. She’s surprised how much she misses him after just a few days. Judging from the long phone call that Amy makes to Sheldon, she’s missing her not-her-boyfriend as well. Maya wonders when they’re going to stop kidding themselves and decides probably never, at least not if Amy’s serious about her engagement to Faisal.

“Amy?” she asks when Amy gets off the phone.

“Yes?”

“How did you meet Faisal?”

“At a conference. He was struck by my elegance, or so he tells me. Considering the hotel didn’t have an adequate cleaning service and so I spent the entire second day of the conference with and orange juice stain on my shirt, I’m not sure where he got ‘elegant’ from.”

“Did he propose to you then?”

“No. We corresponded by email and Skype for a year, and then he sent me a ring.” Amy fishes under her sweater and pulls out a necklace with a simple gold ring set with seven small diamonds. “I’m reluctant to wear it in public, but sometimes I put it on at home and tell myself if things don’t work out with Sheldon I can always go to Saudi Arabia.”

“Do you think you’d really do that?”

“Faisal told me he loves me. Sheldon told me he thinks romantic love is a social construct designed to sell flowers and chocolates.”

“I can see why you’d consider moving,” Maya says, resolving to have a word with Sheldon at work, where he can’t get away without leaving his precious whiteboards behind. Maybe she’ll threaten him with an eraser.

“I don’t want to, though. Not now I’ve got friends. I have more reasons to stay here than to go. All my best research has happened here. Besides, I need to see your transition through and assess how you feel once it’s all over.”

“I think part of me will always be changing even after the surgery,” Maya says.

“Then that’s a good excuse not to go anywhere, isn’t it?”

Their flight is called at a completely different gate and they have to make a dash for the other end of the terminal, along with dozens of other surprised and annoyed passengers. Then it’s held up as their luggage is still waiting to be transferred. Maya hooks her arm through Amy’s and pulls her over to sit near the window, where they can watch the planes coming and going.

“Is it so wrong to want to be loved by someone?” Amy asks abruptly. “I mean in a physical sense, as well as...” She looks frustrated. “I grew up being told to hold on to my purity, but I don’t want to end up alone forever.”

“Of course it’s not wrong! I don’t know exactly what your mom told you to make you feel that way, but love... it’s amazing. I felt so good when Stuart told me he loved me the first time. I think maybe if you care about Sheldon as more than friends, you should say something. We don’t want you to be the next one with three dozen cats.”

“He offered me Zazzles, but I couldn’t take him in. Ricky would be jealous. He really didn’t want to let go of Zazzles.”

“He gave him to Missy, didn’t he?”

“Yes. I don’t think she really wanted him, but she got him.”

The boarding announcement that goes out next is an _actual_ boarding announcement, and the two of them make their way arm in arm onto the plane. Amy becomes reticent on the topic of Sheldon as soon as they have a stranger seated beside them, and so instead the two of them put on earphones and watch episodes of _How I Met Your Mother_ – which Amy says is getting to the point of being ridiculously drawn-out – and _Community_ , which Maya resolves to introduce Stuart to after laughing so hard at it she gets hushed by not only their seatmate but the people in the row in front.

 

When they finally arrive in Pasadena, Maya drops Amy home with all her luggage and then goes to her own home, where Stuart’s waiting for her.

The first thing she does, before they make love and _then_ get around to eating the tacos Stuart’s made, is tell him she loves him, just to watch the pleased smile appear on his face.

 

**Then (February 2011): Understanding**

Annie likes to think she’s a woman of the world, but when Stuart’s relationship status gets updated and she realizes his girlfriend’s a trans woman, it throws her for a second. Not because Maya is trans, not because she has any problem with that, but because she never thought that Stuart would hook up with anyone other than someone he met at a con, and when she noses through Maya’s profile that’s pretty clearly not the case. So, someone Stuart already knows pretty well. She’s always thought friendship was the best basis for a lasting relationship. She’s been friends with Dale for over a year and dating him since New Year’s and the only weird thing there is that he has the same name as her cousin, which is a tiny bit off-putting, but it’s the sort of minor detail that she can live with.

She finds a picture of Stuart and Maya together, and the look of adoration on Stuart’s face is almost sickeningly sweet. They’re playing a card game together, sitting across from each other, but he’s watching her instead of the cards. His friend Wil is with them – she’s had a little crush on him ever since _Stand By Me_ – and a tall, solemn-looking guy is sitting with Maya. _He’s_ looking at his cards, staring at them as if they hold the secrets of the universe.

The next picture with both of them together is clearly at least a month later. Maya’s hair’s longer and Stuart’s still looking at her but smiling for the camera at the same time. They’re standing in his store, opening boxes. She wonders who took these shots and then sees they’ve been uploaded by someone called Penny, who appears in the next picture with her arms around Maya. She’s a knockout blonde with a wide grin and a daringly low-cut blue top, and Maya looks equally pretty with her hair in waves and carefully done makeup. Stuart’s landed himself a real catch.

She calls his home phone but the recording tells her it’s been disconnected. She tries his cell instead and a robot asks her to leave a message.

“Stuie, it’s Annie. Your new girlfriend looks like a real sweetheart. Call me, okay? I want to know all the details.”

He’s fairly reticent when he does call her, but she can hear the happiness in his voice.

“I’m living in the store at the moment,” he explains, “so the home phone’s disconnected. I’m lucky AT&T haven’t cut my cell off yet.”

“So where are you calling from?”

“Work, so can we keep this short? I don’t want to get a huge long-distance bill.”

“I just wanted to say congratulations in person. When do we get to meet her?”

“When you’re in the same state as her. We can’t afford to come over there. She’s saving for—” He catches himself and stops talking.

“Let me guess, sex change surgery?”

“Gender confirmation surgery,” Stuart says a little tartly.

“Okay. So she’s not quite a woman yet?”

“Yes, she is. Just because her body doesn’t match her brain doesn’t make her less of a woman.” He sounds actively annoyed this time.

“I’m really sorry. I need to get used to the terminology.”

“They don’t teach you that in med school?”

“The closest I’ve come to that kind of surgery is watching about eight thousand circumcisions.”

“You’re making it worse.”

“Sorry,” Annie says again, and Stuart laughs at her.

“It’s okay. You’ll get used to it. Just.... be careful what you say, okay?”

“I’ll learn,” Annie promises, and as soon as she gets off the phone she goes online to start Googling. She starts with “gender confirmation surgery” and ends up Wikihopping for three solid hours when she should be studying.

At the end of it she feels a little more knowledgeable, but also as though she’s only dipped her toe into a very, very deep pool.


	13. chapter twelve: we got the wherewithal to walk without you all

**Now (July 2011): Masquerading**

July is a busy, busy month. The first thing is Stuart’s birthday, on the seventh; he’s thirty-seven and Maya kids him about robbing the cradle.

“It’s not fair. If I were a woman I’d be a cougar.”

“If you were a woman you’d be too pretty to live,” Maya tells him, springing one of his curls.

They have a quiet party at their apartment, inviting Penny and the girls and Sheldon and the guys. Wil Wheaton turns up and extracts a promise from all of them to come to his place for his birthday at the end of the month, and makes Stuart feel a little younger by pointing out that at least he’s not turning forty like some people. Sheldon insists on a Warlords rematch to settle who really won the tournament, but Maya and Stuart insist on pairing against him and Wil while the others watch (Penny starts a drinking game), so it doesn’t really settle the score, especially because Stuart and Maya win despite Sheldon’s card-counting.

That night once everyone’s gone Maya models her Inara outfit for the first time, dressing in the bathroom, taking time with her makeup to make her eyes look dark and mysterious. Stuart literally stops breathing when she walks into the bedroom and strikes a pose, one hand on her hip, her cleavage accentuated by the strapless push-up bra Penny helped her shop for. She’s wearing a midriff-baring choli top, a long, flowing skirt, and the soft slippers she bought in India. Everything’s a deep shade of red with gold trim.

“Nobody would be able to afford a night with you if you were a Companion,” Stuart says.

“They’d have to get your permission first anyway.”

“No. You’re mine.” Stuart pulls her close and claims her mouth with his. He’s not in costume but nonetheless things progress pretty much the way Maya expects they would if they actually _were_ Inara and Mal; hot and passionate and full of the release of pent-up desire. She kicks the slippers off but he makes her leave the rest of the outfit on, pushing her skirt up to her waist and pulling her down on top of him so that it pools out around them. His hands settle on her hips, long fingers leaving small bruises that linger for days and make her smile in memory every time she sees them.

“We should really be saving this for the night of the Masquerade,” Maya says once he’s inside her, holding perfectly still for a second. Stuart just makes a protesting sound and jerks his hips up and Maya relents, moving atop him in what’s almost a swaying motion, circling her hips a little, feeling him hit that spot inside her again and again. She slows down when she’s about to come, afraid of making a mess of her skirt, and Stuart drops one hand to slide it under her skirt and stroke her thigh, fingers tightening as he comes inside her. He’s only just finished when Maya pulls off him, yanks her skirt off, and ends up coming with her cock pressed against his and his mouth sucking hard on her nipple through her choli, leaving a wet spot on the flimsy fabric.

“We’re going to have to come up with something to top that for Comic-Con,” Maya says when she’s got her breath back.

“Well, if it’s topping you want...” Stuart grabs her wrist, rolls her onto her back and pins her down, his mouth latching on to her breast just above the low scoop neck of her choli, and she writhes under him, feeling hot all over from his sudden passionate attack. He leaves a livid mark on her that she just hopes fades before the con; sure, it’s still weeks away but it’s a pretty dark mark.

“Good?”

“Good start.” Maya’s not sure if she’s breathing or not.

“Is that a challenge?”

“Maybe.”

Stuart ends up making her come twice more; after the third climax she’s completely wrung out and feels like she can’t move at all. She decides she’s getting addicted to sex and tells Stuart as much, her voice slowed and her thoughts muddled. He just laughs and lies down beside her, eyes practically sparkling.

“I love knowing I can do this to you. I was out of practice for a long time.”

“We should draw up a lesson plan.”

Stuart makes a circle with his thumb and finger around her wrist. “In that case, I want the next one to be on the proper use of restraints,” he says, squeezing hard enough to make her gasp.

“Is there a dress code for this school?”

“Yes. You have to be undressed.” His eyes are dark and intense. “Maybe you should wear your collar.”

“Maybe I will.”

 

They fit that “lesson” and a few others in before Comic-Con, but finally the big weekend rolls around and they make the drive to San Diego. Howard and Bernadette come with them; Sheldon and Leonard are in Leonard’s car and the other three girls unilaterally refused to go. The amount of fuss Penny makes about the girls’ weekend she’s planning makes Maya almost wish she weren’t going. But then she remembers that they have the Masquerade, and she has a strangely intense desire to flaunt herself in public and see how people react. She’s a little afraid of negativity, but figures security should be good enough to keep anything bad from happening, at least while she’s on stage.

She has her Uhura dress to wear during the day, and plans to alternate between it and her Inara costume after Saturday night. Stuart’s just got his work “uniform” of jeans and a variety of t-shirts for when he’s manning the booth, but has tan pants, brown leather boots, and a brown shirt for his Mal costume, plus tan braces and a brown leather holster with a fake gun. A Nerf gun, actually, but he’s painted it and the foam darts black and it looks convincing enough that Maya worries about getting it past security. Then again, considering one of the first people she sees is a Lister from _Red Dwarf_ carting around a huge bazookoid, maybe she doesn’t have to worry about it.

They get there super early but people are already lining up to get in, and Stuart almost has a panic attack at the thought of not being set up on time. He has his exhibitor’s pass, though, and he and Maya are let into the hall without any problems, carrying the boxes of comics and cardboard display stands from the car with some help from Howard and a security guard to get everything in with one trip.

“Are you sure you don’t mind me leaving you?” Maya asks.

“Maya, relax. I can do this. I’ve been doing it for years.” He does have a certain confidence once he’s settled into the booth with the comics displayed around him.

“I’ll bring you morning tea. And lunch. And afternoon tea.”

Stuart kisses her to shut her up. “Just make sure you save me dessert,” he whispers, and it should be corny but somehow it isn’t.

He settles in with his sketchpad, although from what he’s told her he shouldn’t be sitting around bored for long.

“Maybe one day you’ll be in Artists’ Alley,” Maya says, giving him another kiss for good luck.

“Yeah, right.” But he does get a wistful look in his eyes, and she knows she’s touched upon a secret wish. As she walks away to join the others outside, she’s already trying to think of ways to earn more money so he can hire his cousin on a more regular basis to mind the store while he draws.

He could turn her into a superheroine. For that matter, he’s drawn her in her Catwoman outfit at least once. She could be the next Wanda Mann, although maybe with a less unfortunate name (what _was_ Gaiman on when he came up with that one?). Not that that would be an instant money-spinner, but she likes the idea anyway. It would make cosplay so much easier.

She feels kind of pathetic for wearing the Uhura dress yet again, but the Masquerade rules state she can’t wear her Inara outfit until the show, and she has to admit she’s having fun keeping the guys – and an increasingly bored Bernadette – guessing about what they’re going as. The closest guess they get is Zoë and Wash, and Maya holds her breath waiting for one of them to say Inara next, but the conversation devolves into Howard reminiscing about meeting Summer Glau and Bernadette hitting him repeatedly with her purse.

As promised, Maya brings Stuart snacks and lunch. He’s busy each time she goes up to the booth, and at afternoon tea time he’s having an involved conversation with a girl dressed as Death ( _Sandman_ again; it’s following her around today) and is so engrossed that she gets right up to the booth without him even noticing her presence. She’s a little miffed by this, but then realizes that Death is goth club Sarah – so, she’s probably wearing her normal clothes.

“Hey, Sarah.”

“Hi, Maya.” Sarah eyes her. “Nice dress.”

“Nice necklaces.” She’s wearing about seven. Maya isn’t sure if that’s in character or just an affectation.

“I was just checking out your boyfriend’s work. He’s some artist.”

“I know.” She’s trying hard not to sound stilted but it’s not working out as well as she’d like, and damn it, why can’t she stop looking at Sarah’s black lipstick and wondering if it tastes like blackberries?

“What’re you planning on entering the Masquerade as? Not Uhura.”

“Not Uhura. How did you know we were entering?”

“Stuart told me. He said you’ve been working on your costume for months. Are you Catwoman? You’d rock the Eartha Kitt look.” She lets out a throaty growl that does something weird to Maya’s knees, because they go shaky.

“She’s not Catwoman,” Stuart says, frowning a little. “Maya, can we talk?”

There’s not really anywhere private to talk. They have to settle for moving to the back corner of the booth; Stuart winds his arms around Maya’s neck and pulls her into a kiss.

“This isn’t talking.”

“I think she’s hitting on both of us,” Stuart says, and Maya suddenly wishes she was wearing flats instead of heels, because her knees really do not want to work. “Do you think...”

“Well. Um.”

“Should I take that as a definite ‘maybe’, or a probable ‘I’ll think about it’?”

“Are _you_ thinking about it?”

“I wasn’t until she grabbed my pencil and stuck it in her mouth while she was talking to me. I still don’t know if she did it on purpose or not.”

“How the hell do we find out what she wants?”

“You could just ask,” Sarah says from behind Stuart, making them both jump.

“This was supposed to be a private conversation!” Maya grumbles.

Sarah shrugs. “I can lip read. My brother’s deaf, so I learned how to talk so he could understand, and I picked up on a bunch of stuff myself. You have an expressive mouth,” she adds to Stuart, who, predictably, goes bright red.

“Um,” Maya says eloquently.

“Here.” She takes Maya’s hand and scrawls a number on the back of it with a pen. “Forgive the cliché, but call me.” And she disappears into the slowly moving crowd, a dark little Gothic mystery amongst the bright comic colors of the other costumes.

“Well. Wow,” Stuart says.

Maya just pulls her phone out of her purse and puts Sarah’s number in it, adding her as “Goth Sarah” so she’ll know how to find it again. Then there’s a customer trying to get Stuart’s attention and he sells a whole bundle of comics plus a couple of graphic novels. Then Maya gets his attention again by pointing out the painting workshop that she looked up on the program.

“I can’t go anywhere, Maya.”

“You can if I stay here for you,” Maya says, shooing him away and sitting down.

It’s far from boring sitting in the booth, although her butt gets tired after a while. She gets a few compliments on her costume, has a fun conversation with two girls and a guy respectively dressed as Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity – about their favorite portrayals of humanized ponies, naturally – and sells quite a few comics. If she didn’t know that Stuart had another half dozen boxes in the trunk of her car and four more in Leonard’s backseat she’d be starting to worry about stock.

She starts a list on Stuart’s sketchpad about ideas for the store. Roleplaying books come to mind, considering that comic book enthusiasts and gamers go together like cheese and crackers. She has a pattern for a dice bag somewhere that she could probably make a few of, and she’s seen dice displays that don’t take up much room. If they swapped the counter out for a reinforced glass cabinet, they could store dice in the top section... but then they might not be able to have sex on it again, and she’d miss being able to do that.

She gives up on the list after “hire Wil Wheaton to play Warlords professionally against fanboys” and starts drawing hearts instead. She can’t draw anywhere near as well as Stuart, but she manages a little anime catgirl that’s not completely terrible.

“Maya, what are you doing?” Captain Leonard Kirk is standing in front of the booth, frowning a little.

“Minding the booth for Stuart while he’s at the Lucio Parrillo painting demonstration,” Maya says, wondering how most of that isn’t completely obvious. Then she wonders what happens when solo exhibitors have to go to the bathroom. Then she realizes she needs to go and has to ask Leonard to watch the booth for her while she runs to the women’s room.

For the first time in a long time someone gives her a strange look, but it’s only when she’s washing her hands and about to leave. Their eyes meet in the mirror and the other woman – also an Uhura, but a blonde, white one – looks away and practically runs out of the room. Maya makes a point of drying her hands slowly, but when she exits the bathroom the woman’s talking to one of the security guards about three feet away and she almost runs into them.

“Him,” the woman says. “He was in there.”

“Uh, sorry, but this woman says—”

“—that another woman was using the women’s bathroom? What’s her point?” Maya snaps, glad that her voice has gone up since starting on hormones; even more glad that she took time to do voice training and had a pretty good starting point to work from.

“She says you’re, uh—”

“Is there a problem here?” Sheldon materializes at the guard’s elbow. “Maya, are they bothering you?”

“He was in the women’s room!” the woman snaps.

Then Sheldon completely and utterly breaks Maya’s brain.

“Who was? My girlfriend?” he asks, and pulls her close, and kisses her right on the mouth. “Don’t listen to her, sweetie. She’s just jealous because she doesn’t look as good as you do in that dress.”

The other Uhura flounces off. The security guard just cracks up and waves them away. Sheldon escorts Maya back to the booth, his arm around her shoulders, which is good, because she thinks she’s going to collapse from a combination of anger and wanting to laugh. He has a sly smile on his face that makes Leonard do a double-take when they arrive back at the booth.

“So what just happened?” he asks.

“I’m not quite sure myself,” Maya says.

“I was channeling Penny, I think.” Sheldon still looks proud of himself.

“I don’t think Penny would have kissed me, dude.”

“You _kissed_ her?” Leonard looks stunned.

“Some woman went to security about me being in the women’s bathroom. Sheldon came along and said I was his girlfriend and kissed me in front of her and she ran off,” Maya explains.

“I didn’t know Sheldon knew what his mouth was for other than talking too much.” Now Leonard looks vaguely faint.

“Excuse me, Leonard, but I’m well aware of the other functions of my mouth – eating is a notable example that you completely overlooked – and in any case, I was only doing it to make that detestable woman go away.”

“You should try that on Amy. The kissing, not the talking,” Maya says.

Sheldon gives her a bewildered look, as though she just suggested he try it on Leonard. “Why would I try it on Amy?”

“Because she would be interested in it. Just trust me on this.”

“Have you two been having girl talk?” Leonard asks, surrendering his seat behind the table.

“What else would we do on girls’ nights?”

“Get drunk and giggle a lot, as far as I can tell from what Priya says.”

“That’s part of it too,” Maya admits. Then she thinks of something and starts feeling a little sick. “But how did she know? I thought I was passing all right.”

“We met her last year. I remember her because she was wearing the same costume on the third day of the con and she attempted to stick her tongue in Wolowitz’s ear while we were eating lunch,” Mr. Eidetic Memory explains. “She apparently remembers you from your former incarnation.”

They leave her alone not much later. Maya doesn’t see the other Uhura again, but Sarah swings by the table just to flash a little cleavage and smile at her knowingly not long before Stuart gets back from the painting demonstration. Maya realizes that if Stuart’s on board with it, she’s going to be calling the number that Sarah gave her. The only part she’s unsure about is seeing Stuart with another woman, and even that gives her an odd kind of thrill. It’ll be like previewing what he’ll do to her after her surgery.

 

The rest of the day passes in a blur. After talking to Stuart she texts Sarah their hotel, room number, and a time, and then starts on the mini-bar. Stuart showers and then goes online to update his con blog while Maya showers.

There’s a knock at the door at the exact appointed time. Sarah walks in and puts her arms around Maya’s neck without preamble, pulling her down into a thorough kiss. Maya hears Stuart gasp and pulls Sarah back toward the bed with her hands on Sarah’s waist.

Stuart’s shy to begin with, or maybe he’s just enjoying watching the two of them together. Either way, when they’re finally all three stripped bare, he’s hard as hell. Sarah lies back on the bed and Maya goes down on her eagerly while Stuart kisses her and plays with her breasts, which are small like Maya’s. She has a vertical clitoral hood piercing for Maya to tongue; Maya’s fairly jealous of both the piercing and the clit.

“Stuart?”

“Mmmm?”

“Should I get this done after my surgery?” She shows him what she means and watches as he essays a few experimental licks for himself.

“Interesting...”

“Someone put something in me,” Sarah moans, and Stuart rolls on a condom and obliges. Maya feels a little left out until she realizes she can lube her fingers up and slip them into Stuart, who ends up torn between thrusting into Sarah and fucking himself on Maya’s fingers. She’s never seen him so wanton and she’s finding she really likes it.

“Maya, come up here.” Sarah grabs her wrist and pulls her up the bed insistently until Maya realizes exactly what she wants and straddles her face. Sarah tongues the tip of her cock expertly, as though she’s done this before, and maybe she has. She runs her tongue down the length of it and Maya shivers.

“Oh my God,” Stuart gasps, and Maya feels his body go tense behind her as he comes. Sarah holds her still so that she’s licking just the tip of Maya’s cock again and Maya comes into her mouth. It’s not something she’s usually comfortable with any more, but considering everything else, she’s too caught up in the moment to care.

The three of them rest for a while; Maya orders room service and answers the door in her now rumpled dress and manages to stop the guy from looking past her, where Stuart and Sarah are still stretched out naked on the bed. When she comes back with fruit and melted chocolate and sparkling wine Sarah sits straight up and dips her finger into the chocolate, trailing a line across her breasts for Maya to trace with her tongue. This time Stuart leaves the two of them to each other, hand moving slowly to bring himself back to full arousal. That lasts until Sarah rolls him onto his stomach and strokes between his legs and he stops her only to put a fresh condom on, stretch Maya open, and push into her before letting her go back to what she’s doing with her fingers. His eyes are closed and slow shivers ripple through him like he’s coming before he actually does come.

Maya ends up going back down on Sarah before they’re done, and she wrings another two orgasms out of Sarah before the other woman grabs her hair and pulls her away.

“Too much,” she gasps.

“Not from where I’m sitting,” Stuart says, and Maya laughs and goes down on him instead, sucking him long and slow until she proudly gets him to come for the third time that night. His taste mingles with Sarah’s on her tongue and she licks her own lips to get it all.

 

They sleep tangled up in the same bed but when Maya wakes the next morning Sarah’s gone. There’s a note on the hotel paper saying, _Thanks for last night. What happens at Comic-Con stays at Comic-Con, unless you want to “hang out” another time. XXOO._

Maya folds the note up and tucks it into her purse, and then realizes her Uhura dress is far too scrunched to wear again. Worrying that her Inara outfit is in a similar state in her suitcase, she gets it out and hangs it up in the rudimentary closet. Stuart’s Mal costume is already in there.

She does have another backup costume, though: her Catwoman outfit. It fits rather more snugly across the chest than when she first wore it for Stuart. She’s replaced the skintight pants with a short flared skirt and black leggings, and added a pointy black cat-eared headband. Stuart’s just waking up when she’s fully dressed, and his eyes go from blinking sleepily to wide open within seconds.

“I like that even better on you now,” he says.

“Why did you choose to get us to dress in drag for your bet, anyway?” Maya asks, realizing she’s never found that out.

Stuart blushes. “I wanted to see how you’d look,” he admits. “It turned out more interesting than I expected.”

“You didn’t get off on it, did you? I bet you did,” Maya asks, amused.

“There may have been certain Catwoman related fantasizing,” Stuart admits.

Maya laughs, delighted, and right then is when their breakfast is delivered. She brings Stuart’s to him in bed and snuggles beside him on top of the covers to eat.

After the tumult of the first day and given the promise of the third, Friday is relatively quiet. Maya takes over the stall again for Stuart to go to a couple of panels in the afternoon, enjoying the chance to sit down (she didn’t think her footwear through very carefully). She thinks she sees Sarah in a red wig as Delirium, but isn’t sure until Sarah drifts by the table, looking suitably spaced out, and leans in to kiss her softly on the lips. She’s wearing rainbow-striped lipstick and eyeshadow that must have taken her all morning to put on. For that matter, her hair isn’t a wig, it’s _dyed_.

“No wonder you ran out on us early,” Maya says quietly.

“I forgot to tell you I had an appointment to get this done.” She touches her hair and smiles. The smile has an ethereal quality to it.

“Are you a big _Sandman_ fan?”

“I could barely get through the first book, but once I got rolling it was okay. I don’t really read many comics. I’m just here to soak up the atmosphere and meet some celebrities.” She leans in closer and whispers with her lips right on Maya’s ear, “Last night was a bonus.”

“Maya, hi,” Howard – a tiny Han Solo today – says from three feet away, and Maya pulls back fast.

“Howard, this is Delirium,” she says.

“Delighted. Maya, can we talk?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll mind the stall,” Sarah offers.

Howard tows her out of the main flow of the crowd. “Bernie saw you two kissing,” he says. “What’s going on? Does Stuart know about this?”

“He was there with us last night,” Maya says, trying not to smirk at Howard’s expression, which goes from baffled to flat-out envious in one second flat when he figures it out.

“You got to...”

“Yes. Don’t say anything to anyone. What happens at Comic-Con stays at Comic-Con,” Maya cautions him.

So of course by the time the whole group meets up for dinner, everyone knows, and Penny’s sent her three texts about it, and Maya has to kick Howard under the table twice to stop him trying to ask questions about their night.

 

Stuart takes it out on her ass that night. She doesn’t know where he got a riding crop from, but he’s got one, and the cuffs from home, and she ends up cuffed face-down with the crop laying hot stripes across her ass and thighs and calves.

“I don’t even need to ask to know you told Howard what we did with Sarah last night,” he says, his voice deadly cool. “Were you bragging, or did he ask?”

“Ow. Sarah kissed me and Bernadette saw us.”

Stuart brings the crop down again with an audible swish and Maya yelps with pain when it connects. He uses it more lightly after that, but it still stings.

“She kissed you in front of everyone and you let her?”

“I couldn’t help it... she just leaned in and did it.”

“Like Sheldon kissed you yesterday?” Stuart brings the crop down hard again. “You’re spending a lot of time kissing people who aren’t me.”

She doesn’t know how Stuart gets so dominant sometimes, but she really loves it. He makes her start counting the strokes of the crop, starting from the tenth one and going up to twenty, before he gets the lube and starts roughly fingering her open. He licks along the insides of her thighs and she squirms and writhes and pleads and he finally pulls his fingers out.

“Maya, we’re out of condoms.”

“Oh God, not now! Do you think room service will deliver?”

“I don’t want to ask. But Maya... we know we’re both clean. We had the tests. So...”

The feeling of skin on skin is quite different without the latex in the way. He moves slowly, slowly, as if he’s afraid of hurting her. Maya clenches her hands into fists and ends up begging him for more, which he gives to her after several more long slow strokes. She’s not sure he’s ever flat-out fucked her this hard before, and she’s surprised how much she enjoys it when he does. She comes twice in rapid succession, and he pulls out of her, uncuffs her, and rolls her over to come over her breasts. It’s messy and they end up going straight to the shower, where he washes her hair to help her come back to reality.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Not in any way I didn’t want,” Maya says.

“You really like it?”

“Yes. I... yes.”

“I’m no sadist, Maya. I can’t do it all the time.”

“I don’t expect you to. It was fun. Whenever you’re okay with it.”

“Or whenever your mouth starts wandering.”

“Are you really mad?” Maya asks contritely.

“No. But it’s interesting to pretend.”

 

Saturday night can’t come fast enough as far as Maya’s concerned. She and Stuart take their costumes to a backstage area to dress up; she has to redo her makeup twice and brush her hair right out to make it look as long as possible, and Stuart needs a whole lot of product to coax his curls into flattening out, but in the end it works.

As soon as she walks on stage as Inara, she hears a loud wolf whistle and looks out to see Sarah – who’s dressed as Destruction today, but without the beard – with her fingers in her mouth. It makes her smile, and a round of applause starts and washes over her and Stuart as they move to center stage and briefly enact a scene from the episode ‘Shindig’, swinging fake rapiers at each other before Stuart drops gracefully to one knee and Maya puts her hand on his shoulder and her sword across his throat. He turns his head to kiss her hand – an unscripted move – and that’s the pose that the photographers demand when they get off stage to the special photo area. Stuart manages to flick his tongue out to lick between her fingers, making her expression slightly startled in a couple of the photos.

They end up getting an honorable mention for best presentation, which means more photos, and it’s a long time before they get away to meet the others for what ends up being an almost midnight snack.

“I wish you’d told us,” Leonard says enviously. “I could’ve been Wash.”

“And who would Sheldon be, Jayne or Zoë?” Maya asks.

“Or Kaylee?” Stuart asks mischievously.

“Bernie could be Kaylee,” Howard says fondly, probably imagining the two of them in the engine room together.

“Maybe next year when my hair’s longer I’ll be Zoë,” Maya says.

“I like you better as Inara,” Stuart says, stroking her bare side, and the others all go, “Awww,” in unison.

 

After the last two nights she’s really not sure Stuart can top what they’ve been doing, but he surprises her with a hotel room full of candles, the bed covered in rose petals, and more chocolate and strawberries. They make slow love, looking into each other’s eyes, and Maya whispers, “I love you,” when she starts coming, and then says it again louder, and his name, over and over.

“I love you too, Maya,” Stuart says when they’re separated, lying side by side, face to face. “Actually, I...”

“What?”

“Wait.” Stuart gets up and pads over the thick hotel carpet to his bag, which he digs through. As soon as Maya sees the jewelry box he pulls out she bursts into tears, and he has to hold her close for a long time before she stops crying.

“I was going to wait until after your surgery, but now it’s been pushed back to October, and I don’t want to wait any more. You’ve met my family, I’ve met enough of your family...”

“Oh, Stuart.”

He opens the box, his hands shaking. The ring is amazing; a jade heart flanked by tiny rubies, set in gold. “Maya, will you...”

“Yes. Oh, yes.” She doesn’t even let him finish the sentence before she responds. She pulls him on top of her and kisses him hard; he slips the ring onto her finger as he slips back inside her, and they rock together until they come together, Maya unable to keep from crying again even as her climax shudders through her.      It’s okay, though, because Stuart’s in tears as well, smiling at her through them, and they hold each other for a long time afterward.

“So how do you want to tell people?” Stuart asks after they’ve finally separated and are eating strawberries with slightly less melted chocolate.

“I want them to notice the ring,” Maya says promptly, holding her hand up again to admire it. “Where did you get it? It’s so unusual.”

“I had it made just for you. I wanted something in the colors that make me think of you, and I know jade’s your favorite stone, and ruby’s my birthstone, and they offered me a good deal on it. I should admit Annie already knows.”

“How does she know?”

“She sent me money for my birthday with the suggestion that I do something special for you with it.”

“She didn’t say a ring in particular, did she?”

“She _drew_ one. In the card. I’ll have to show you. I think she was expecting me to get you the Hope Diamond, judging from the size of the rock she drew.”

“I like this,” Maya says, turning her hand to catch the candlelight flickering across it. “I think we should call her and tell her.”

“At least it’s not one in the morning on the East Coast,” Stuart says.

They end up setting up a Skype call to her, which results in a predictable amount of shrieking, and then Stuart calls Priya, who’s at Penny’s girls’ weekend, to retroactively ask her permission to propose to Maya, since it’s not like he can ask Maya’s parents. Priya squeals almost as loudly as Annie did and Penny and Amy crowd in behind her to look at Maya’s hand when she holds it up.

“That’s the most beautiful thing ever,” Penny says, almost in tears. “You two are going to be so happy.”

“We’re already happy,” Stuart says, unable to keep the smile off his face, and Penny does start crying at that, and Amy puts her arms around her. Maya sees her sneak a kiss to Penny’s temple, and then realizes Penny’s texting someone.

Exactly who becomes apparent two minutes later when there’s a barrage of knocking at the door – one is definitely Sheldon, because she recognizes the knocking pattern, but the others are just banging with no particular cadence. She’s glad they’re decently dressed, because when she opens the door Leonard bursts through and throws himself on her, followed quickly by Bernadette.

“Show,” Bernadette demands, and Maya lifts her hand to display the ring. “Stuart, you have amazing taste. Where did you find this?”

“I actually designed it myself,” Stuart says, and he goes back to his bag to find a smaller sketchbook that Maya’s never seen before. In it there are dozens of designs for jewelry – some she recognizes, like Arwen’s Evenstar pendant, and others related to various fantasy stories, but mostly original sketches. It’s clear he’s been thinking about this for some time. Some of the designs are even colored, and she wonders when he made them, because she’s never noticed him working on this kind of design. But then of course he wouldn’t want her to see it as a work in progress, only as a finished product.

“You could be doing this for a living,” Leonard says admiringly.

“Oh, I don’t know... art’s not really something I have a lot of time for...”

“You should make time for it,” Bernadette says. “You could sit with the other artists next year and we can take turns running your booth.”

“You guys would really do that for me?”

“Of course. It’s important to follow your heart.” She follows this up with a soppy look at Howard that makes Maya roll her eyes at Leonard, who lifts his own eyes to heaven and sighs quietly.

 

After all the excitement of the con and the engagement announcement, which gets more likes than anything else Maya’s ever posted on Facebook, Wil’s birthday party is almost understated. It’s a nicely catered event at his house and Anne, Nolan, and Ryan all give speeches while Wil tries to look modest and completely fails. Stuart gets up to say a few words as one of Wil’s friends, and Wil steals the microphone and demands that everyone congratulate Stuart and Maya on their engagement, which they do, much to Stuart’s embarrassment and Maya’s secret delight.

They spend the night talking to a variety of people, some of whom Maya’s never met and quite frankly never expected to meet. A fortieth birthday party is a big deal at the best of times; in the world of Hollywood, where people get immortalized young, it’s even more significant. Surprisingly, Stuart acts like it’s no big deal, but then he’s probably been to a few of these events, if he’s known Wil as long as it seems he has.

She’s sad when it’s all over, not least because it’s nice to have Wil share the spotlight with them, even with the awkward questions like, “So, have you set a date?” (no) and “So, how did he propose?” (right after we had really amazing sex, and I cried) getting fired at her. One girl even asks her rather rudely if she’s pregnant and then doesn’t understand why Maya laughs so hard. She finds dignified ways to answer people’s questions without mentioning the sex but with references to the rose petals and candles.

(She picked up every single petal; they’re at home, drying out to be part of her planned wedding scrapbook. She kept two of the candles. They ate all the strawberries, though, and besides, that would be kind of a weird souvenir.)

Wil’s one of the ones who asks them when the wedding’s set for and shakes his head when they say they haven’t picked a date. “I thought you two were more organized than that.”

“Okay, fine. We’re eloping tomorrow,” Maya says, and Stuart laughs, then gives her an anxious look as if to verify that she is, in fact just joking.

“Don’t you dare have it without me,” Wil says.

“Well... I already have a best man,” Stuart says, “but I could use at least one more groomsman,” and Wil hugs him to the point where Stuart looks like his ribs are about to break.

“So who’s your best man?”

“Actually, it’s a best woman. My sister.”

Wil laughs. “That’s what I like about you, Stuie. You’ve always done things your way.”

 

**Then (October 2004): Meeting**

Wil’s only been down to the comic book store in Pasadena a couple of times before, because it’s kind of out of the way, but he’s getting addicted to Warlords of Ka’a and it’s the only place locally that stocks the cards. He’s kind of surprised that there’s a Halloween costume party planned, since he didn’t think the place got that busy, but he decides on a whim to go and finds a Trek uniform that actually fits. (He refuses to shave, though. So Wesley Crusher grew up and grew a goatee. Bad luck, hardcore fans.)

The guy who owns the place is a genuinely nice guy; he’s got a very dry sense of humor that appeals to Wil, and Wil feels sorry for him when he hits on and gets turned down by two girls during the course of the night. He’s glad he doesn’t have that problem anymore, although it was never really that big a problem for him anyway.

They end up making small talk for a while when the party finally disperses – or maybe “fizzles out” would be a better term – and he finds out the guy’s name is Stuart and he’s into art. He’s maybe more of an artist than a businessman, but at least the store layout looks good. The thing is that there are tiny things painted in the corners of the store – aliens and Cthulhu-oid creatures and other random beings – that Wil’s sure weren’t there back when the place used to be a diner. But the average patron probably doesn’t notice them.

He likes to think he’s not the average patron, though. Plus he thinks Stuart’s hobbit costume is pretty well put together. It all points to someone who deserves a nice girl. But he’s not sure he should try setting Stuart up with anyone he knows; they’d probably be a little over the top for his quiet tastes.


	14. chapter thirteen: when you look in my eyes there’s a part of me that’s still afraid

**Now (August-September 2011): Changing**

Maya’s hands fret in her lap, plucking strand after strand of cotton out of her skirt. She could have waited in her hotel room, or outside, or anywhere, but instead she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor outside the door that leads back to the surgery area.

It’s a long, long wait. She occasionally occupies herself by sending messages – to Stuart, holding the fort back home; to Lizzie, letting her know each time one of the nurses comes out and gives her a reassuring smile; to the rest of Sarah’s family; even to Priya, despite the fact that she’s sure her sister doesn’t need to know all the details of how hard it is to wait and wait. But mostly she just sits and lets the fine silver links of Sarah’s pentacle necklace run through her fingers.

Sarah’s still deep under when she gets taken to recovery, and groggy when she’s returned to her room, but Maya’s learned a lot about getting her own way, and so she’s in there as soon as possible.

“Hey, honey,” she says softly. “How’re you doing?”

Sarah’s eyes roll towards her. “Good. The anesthetic’s still working, though. I can’t feel anything.”

Maya glances along the bed. “Maybe they gave you a robot body.”

“I am the mecha princess,” Sarah agrees dizzily.

“Is she delirious?” the nurse on the other side of the bed asks.

“No, this is normal.” Maya grins and then helps Sarah lift her head enough to put her necklace back on, and then her rings, which were hanging from the chain. “Sarah’s an invincible mecha princess.”

The nurse raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Well, I know _you_ can’t be delirious. You haven’t been under for hours.”

Maya considers explaining the in-joke, but then it wouldn’t be an in-joke any more. “Never mind.”

She sits there for another five minutes, reading messages to Sarah, and then gets shooed back to the hotel room she’s staying in. She goes into the bathroom, sheds all of her clothes, and dares to look into the mirror at her whole body for the first time in a long time. Even though she’s seen the pictures of successful surgeries, she still can’t quite fathom it all.

And October seems like such a very long time away.

 

Most of what Sarah says for the next couple of days is variations on “ow”. Despite the pain as she heals, she looks deliriously happy.

The days are growing shorter but staying hot and they try to spend time outside when they can even though it’s sticky-warm, the kind where air conditioned rooms would be preferable; they want their rooms to be their respite from the mugginess. Both of them talk through Sarah’s slow pain, the pain that plays sharp one moment and dull the next. And out of the talking comes the game.

“Bajingo.”

“Cunt.”

“Oh help, I can’t think of anything for ‘d’.”

“Fanny.”

“You skipped ‘e’! And your fanny’s your ass!”

Sarah giggles. “Not in Australia, it’s not. I have a sister there who laughs her ass off every time she hears the term ‘fanny pack’.”

“She must have real trouble reading Enid Blyton books,” Maya says. She’s figured out that Sarah’s Australian sister is her sister in the same way that Penny and Sarah are her own sisters; by choice rather than by birth.

The other end of the alphabet is easier: vagina, vulva, va-jay-jay, vertical smile. On the third or fourth go-round Maya gets stuck on “l” and says “lady junk” and the two of them scare off a flock of birds by laughing so loudly.

 

After a few days Sarah moves to the nearby hotel, where they share a room with twin beds, so that Sarah can check in with Dr Rumer if she needs to. There are a lot of things Sarah needs to do to keep her new genitalia in working order, and Maya gives her privacy to do them, at the same time kind of wanting to watch and learn. She knows she’ll be able to do it herself when the time comes, though, and that it’s up to Sarah whether or not she chooses to share the secrets of the situation.

They talk a lot over the course of those days, lying on their respective beds, and Maya admits to a lot of things she hasn’t even talked about on Fetlife. Sarah listens nonjudgmentally, and to Maya’s surprise even agrees with her on a lot of points. Maybe she’s not as strange in her tastes as she sometimes thinks she is. Sarah does point out to her that there are plenty of places she can talk about this stuff on Fetlife outside of the trans group, but somehow it’s not the same as talking to someone one on one, someone who can listen and understand and laugh and empathize.

 

The initial healing period of two weeks seems to take forever. Sarah gets her stitches out, complains about dilating being painful and boring, and perks up when she’s told she’ll be able to have penetrative sex in another four weeks. What exactly penetrative sex between two lesbians will entail is best left up to her and Lizzie to determine, but judging from the glint in her eyes she has something in mind. Maya suspects she knows, considering her own toy collection.

Amy flies down on the tenth day to stay with them and collect some more data from Sarah, who has trouble sitting still for the whole time and eventually yanks the electrodes off her head and locks herself in the bathroom for three hours to recover from a particularly arduous questioning session. Amy prudently doesn’t even try to get her to come back out; Maya coaches her through an apology note to push under the door and then sends her off sightseeing while she sits outside the bathroom and listens to Sarah crying in pain and loneliness. She eventually persuades Sarah to open the door long enough to slip her phone through, and then puts her headphones on to give Sarah the privacy she sorely needs to talk to her wife. It makes her afraid of how she’s going to be when it’s her turn. Going off hormones for the surgery looks incredibly unfun, to say the least.

 Sarah emerges before Amy gets back, eyes red but dry, and Maya pulls her into a long embrace. The two end up sitting on the edge of Sarah’s bed, watching _Thor_ and eating popcorn. Amy slinks back in a while later with a peace offering of chocolate. (And a new set of electrodes, but she puts them away and doesn’t get pushy, which is good, because Maya really doesn’t want to get angry at her for being socially clueless; it would be like getting angry at a kitten for being adorable.)

They don’t do any more EEG testing or psychological questioning that night. Apart from anything else, Maya and Sarah are too engrossed in _Thor_ and Chris Hemsworth (much to Sarah’s surprise; she doesn’t usually do crushes on men) to produce anything resembling useable results.

The next day is another story. Amy gets Maya in the chair first and drills her about how she feels about her own impending surgery now she’s seen the results of Sarah’s.

“I’m not looking forward to going off the hormones. I know I have to for the surgery, but after watching Sarah...” Maya trails off, unsure how to finish the sentence considering that her friend’s right there.

“It’s okay,” Sarah says. “At least I know I get to go back on them in two days’ time.” She wanders over to the window and looks out over the view, which is fairly uninspiring; the street outside shimmering a little with a heat haze, cars zooming past on their way to who knows where. “It’s not the greatest part of the whole experience, though.”

“What _is_ the greatest part of the whole experience?” Amy asks, pen at the ready.

“Looking in the mirror and seeing myself,” Sarah answers simply. “Seeing myself whole, without anything wrong or extra that doesn’t belong.”

It’s Maya’s turn to burst into tears, but she doesn’t make a dash for the bathroom. Instead she just buries her face in her hands while the EEG jumps and scratches over the paper beside her. Amy’s stopped taking notes and pats her on the shoulder, a la one of Sheldon’s faux hugs. Sarah brings her a box of tissues.

“I just want this to be over,” Maya sniffles through the tissue. “I just want to be like you, now, instead of having to wait.”

“It’ll be worth the wait, I promise,” Sarah says. “It’s worth every minute of pain to feel comfortable in your own skin.”

“We shouldn’t have to feel the pain in the first place. It’s not fair.”

“Trans women have been saying that forever. At least we have reasonable ways to get rid of the dysphoria now, instead of having to rely on the old ways.” She doesn’t have to elaborate; Maya’s read enough about trans women getting botched surgeries before the art was really perfected, performing home operations that go horribly wrong, and other horror stories. She’s genuinely grateful that she lives in a world where she doesn’t have to deal with that kind of misery. She at least has that to be thankful for.

It’s just hard to be thankful when she still feels so wrong sometimes.

 

Finally they have to go their separate ways once more. The next time they see each other will be for Maya’s surgery in October, and then Annie will be there as well, and Amy will stay the whole time, and it’s all just a little bit overwhelming for Maya to think about, so she tries not to.

Sarah’s flight leaves before Maya’s this time. She’s walking a lot better when she disappears through the departure gate than she was when she first got out of surgery. Maya watches her go, feeling envious. She wants it to be her turn to go home healed.

Amy spends the entire flight home typing up her notes, to the point where Maya’s sure she’s doing more than just analyzing research, she’s writing so much. She sneaks a peek at Amy’s laptop when Amy gets up to use the bathroom and sees nothing but a document full of text, though, so maybe Amy’s just more invested in this project than she’d realized. It makes her feel strange to really think of herself as a test subject, but she’s come this far and, although some – or a lot – of Amy’s questions are really confronting, she’s not going to stop just because of that.

She might have to tell Amy to steer clear of some things more often, like anything that’s going to make her cry when she’s off her hormones for the surgery, but since that could be anything and everything she doesn’t want to push her luck. She wants Amy to be able to publish this research. She wants her story to be told for the benefit of other women like her who don’t have the same way to speak up for themselves. If it means a few more tears shed along the way, then so be it.

 

Stuart notices how quiet she is when she gets home and comments on it.

“I’m just realizing how far away October is.” She gives him a wan smile. “Although given the recovery period, I think I know exactly what to give you for Christmas.”

“I’d better give you something nice to wrap it in, then,” Stuart shoots back.

“I think you’ve already given me the best present of my life.” Maya admires her ring for about the eight millionth time, and then looks at him as coyly as possible. “Of course, if you already had something in mind, I wouldn’t say no.”

“Well, maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” is all the answer Stuart will give.

“Stuart...”

“Yes?”

“You’re a tease.”

“I think that’s the nicest thing a woman’s ever said to me.”

“Put it on your blog,” Maya suggests, and both of them start laughing.

 

She’s in a quieter mood again later in the evening, though, and even rewatching a couple of episodes of _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ (she’s getting impatient for the new season to begin) doesn’t help. She can’t stop thinking about the possibility of something going wrong with the surgery, even though it’s not as if she’s going to some back alley surgeon with all the medical knowledge of a cabbage.

“Will you please just tell me what’s wrong?” Stuart finally asks after hearing her sigh yet again. He’s sitting at his drafting desk, drawing up a possible new layout for the comic book store, and he looks vaguely annoyed that she’s sighing, or possibly that she’s got the volume turned up too loudly on the television. “I know there’s something on your mind, so talk to me.”

“I’m just afraid that the surgery might go wrong,” Maya admits.

“You _just_ came back from being with Sarah while she got hers done with no problems. You know it’s going to be fine.”

“What if there’s an accident?”

“Then we’ll get Faisal to pay to get it fixed. Unless you think Dr Rumer’s going to give you a species change by mistake and turn you into a tiger.”

Maya thinks of many-armed Durga, riding on the back of a tiger. “That might not be so bad.”

Stuart groans. “Call me biased, but I proposed to you on the basis that you were going to remain human.”

“I’d better not get a tigerplasty then.”

“Aren’t you lucky enough to be getting the surgery done as early as you are?” Stuart reminds her. “You technically haven’t done the real life thing for a full year, even by October.”

“Yeah, well, I’m lucky to have a therapist willing to write a good letter of recommendation and a wealthy benefactor. Those things go a long way. ”

“Exactly. So focus on the positive side of it all and try not to think about the negatives.”

“It’s not as easy as that!” Maya says, frustrated.

“I know. But it’s what my therapist used to say when I was feeling depressed about something specific.”

“Your therapist also told you to find a real girlfriend.”

“You have a point.”

“I don’t know. I just need a little more than the equivalent of ‘always look on the bright side of life’.”

“I don’t know what else to say! I can’t give you counseling when I need help myself! Maybe you need to schedule another session with your therapist. You missed seeing her while you were away and it’s starting to show.” Stuart folds his arms and looks pointedly at Maya’s phone until Maya gives in and picks it up.

She’s on a first-name basis with her therapist now, has been for some months, and yet it still feels weird; maybe it’s because of growing up with a doctor for a father that she’s used to people with titles insisting that they get used. Although it’s more likely to be because she hangs out with Sheldon so much.

“Cecilia, it’s Maya. I need to make an appointment sometime soon.”

“Of course you do,” comes the almost too quick reply. “I should have scheduled a time with you to come see me as soon as you got back before you went away in the first place.”

They organize to meet up two days later and then Maya returns Stuart’s Look until he calls his own therapist and sets a time to go over his perspective on Maya’s worries.

 

Before therapy night, though, comes cheeseburger night at the Cheesecake Factory, and with it the utter surprise of Sheldon and Amy walking in hand in hand. Sheldon looks supremely uncomfortable with the situation, but Amy looks happy. They only let go to sit down and then Amy pointedly puts her hand over Sheldon’s on the table.

Not long after they’ve ordered Amy points out the custom of females accompanying one another to the bathroom, and Maya takes the hint and goes with her.

“We’ve made some amendments to our verbal agreement on the parameters of our relationship,” she announces.  “It’s on a trial basis, but I feel like it’s working well so far.”

“Good for you!” Maya says, hugging her. She’s not quite sure if that’s the right reaction, but Amy hugs her back, so apparently it is. The idea of an Amy who doesn’t flinch from people other than Penny or Sheldon hugging her is fairly alien, but so is the idea of a Sheldon who voluntarily holds hands with his... his... well, probably girlfriend.

“I haven’t said anything to Faisal.”

“Don’t you think you should?”

Amy lifts her chin and looks defiant. “I think what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I also think that if he’s so in love with me, he’d be offering to pay for me to come to Saudi Arabia instead of funding my continued research here. Besides, he’s repeatedly made mention of a close male friend at home. I’m not entirely certain, but I believe I may be acting as what’s known as a ‘beard’.”

Maya can’t decide whether she’s shocked or not. She settles for hugging Amy again, this time for a little longer, and then leading her back out to their table, where Amy promptly latches on to Sheldon, who dutifully holds her hand again until their meal is served.

Stuart wanders in late after closing the store and just orders lemon cheesecake instead of real food. Maya envies his ability to eat junk and stay skinny, but then again, he’s put on a little weight now they’re living together and he’s mostly eating normal meals. Leonard watches him enviously.

“It’s kind of ironic that we come to the Cheesecake Factory when I’m lactose intolerant,” he comments.

“That’s not real irony, Alanis,” Maya says.

The conversation turns to nineties music and how much music these days is just noise, until Priya complains that they’re making her feel old – a real achievement considering she’s the youngest member of the group. Finally they go their separate ways.

Maya’s still feeling a little out of it, very aware of October slowly creeping closer. That night is the first time in months that she has to stop Stuart touching her because she’s feeling intensely dysphoric. Stuart not only obeys, but lets her cuff him to the head of the bed and go down on him (which much be _such_ a torment). She takes advantage of his position to tease him in every way she knows how, with her fingers as well as her mouth, until he’s literally begging, not just to come, but for her to fuck him. She can’t bring herself to put the harness on, feeling the way she does, but she slips the plug inside him and starts it vibrating and he goes wild, arching his back and pushing into her mouth, and Maya laughs out of sheer delight at how much of a reaction she can get out of him. Hearing the stream of profanity coming from his usually relatively innocent mouth is wildly arousing, and she ends up bringing herself off while he lies there straining toward her mouth; she occasionally dips her head to lick him just to keep teasing him, and finally relents and lets him come after half an hour of torment because she can see his arms are getting tired.

It’s strange, but it makes her feel more like herself to torment him so. She’s never really thought of herself as the dominant type, but doing it for him works. Oh, does it ever work.

He has chafed places on his wrists from the cuffs despite their soft lining, and she soothes them with kisses. They lie together for a long time just kissing, long soft kisses that turn messy after a while.

“Maybe we should start thinking about a wedding date,” Stuart says. I know it’ll have to wait a while after your surgery, but I’d like it to be next year at the latest.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be the demanding one?”

Stuart just gives her a wicked smile and says, “Whatever you say, Maya Rajya Bloom.”

She shivers with delight at the name. Yeah, she’s definitely ditching the “Koothrappali”, paperwork be damned. “Say it again!”

“Maya Bloom.” He pauses, then adds, “My love.”

“You’re so sappy it’s disgusting,” Maya informs him, and then kisses him until they’re both dizzy.

 

Summer gives way to autumn. Maya has to keep sweeping oak leaves off the tiny balcony. Stuart takes a fancy to the dying leaves and does a lot of drawings that are a riot of color, like a bright fire. At one point he makes her pose with red leaves drifting over her body and her eyes closed on their bed, and although it’s a dreadful mess to clean up, the resulting painting ends up on display in a gallery downtown. Maya’s too pleased with it to be embarrassed that she’s mostly naked.

Howard suggests he and Bernadette buy it. Bernadette smacks him.

It does find a buyer eventually, a guy who then commissions Stuart to do a mural on the wall of his store, which is a weird bar with a supernatural theme. Stuart works late nights painting coffins and vampires and werewolves and opens a new bank account for their wedding fund with it. Suddenly the notion of them getting married seems a lot more real now that there’s money, and Maya starts looking around for venues. She really likes the look of the Athenaeum, which she’s entitled to use as a Caltech academic; Stuart’s a little scared of the size of the place but likes the look of it. The only problem is they have to book in advance, and that of course requires choosing a date. Maya can’t think beyond October, so Stuart takes over, and they end up booked in for a year later.

“Gives me time to make a dress,” Maya says when he informs her they’re getting married on September 1st, 2012.

“You said Indian brides get married in red...”

“Where are you going with this?”

“You should wear your Inara costume.”

“Are you serious? But you’ve already seen it, and so have a bunch of other people.”

“So? It’s red, it’s beautiful, and it works.”

She eventually gives in, but only because he has a wicked puppy-dog look.

They pick their attendants: Stuart has Annie, Wil, Sheldon, and Leonard; Maya has Penny, Howard, Bernadette, Amy, and Priya. The numbers are off but nobody cares, least of all Amy, who’s dying with delight at the fact that she’ll be involved in two weddings within months of each other. Then Penny finds out that she can become a legally recognized celebrant online and does so, and suddenly Maya doesn’t have to pick a celebrant. Howard and Bernadette call dibs on her for their May wedding as well.

 

“I’ll give you the friends and family discount,” Penny says.

“What do you even get to charge as a celebrant, anyway?”

“Enough to cover the cost of getting ordained online.”

“Does this mean you want us to call you Father Penny?” Howard asks.

It’s Vintage Video Games night and Sheldon has hooked them all up via the wireless so that they can play _Baldur’s Gate_ as a multiplayer party, much to the boredom of most of the girls. Maya’s playing an elven ranger and Stuart’s playing a halfling thief. Between the two of them they’re covering a respectable amount of ground without even needing the others as backup. Penny’s playing a tank of a cleric in full plate armor. Bernadette, Amy, and Priya are sitting at the kitchen island drinking wine.

Things aren’t that different now that Sheldon and Penny are living together. The living room has been rearranged to accommodate her couch, but she still sits in what Sheldon now calls her spot, beside him on the leather couch. Maya and Stuart are on Penny’s couch. Howard’s beside Penny. Leonard’s in his chair beside Penny’s couch. It’s a little more convoluted than it used to be, but it works, except for the mildly frustrating part where Maya’s wearing her plug at Stuart’s request and she’s just hoping they get to a good stopping place so they can go home sooner rather than later.

The biggest difference is in the bathroom, where Penny’s bottles of shampoo and conditioner and body wash crowd out Sheldon’s lone bottle of combination hair cleaning junk, and her bright pink towel hangs alongside Sheldon’s muted beige. If her bedroom door is open sometimes the place smells like essential oils, although not to the extent that Maya and Stuart’s usually does. They love their oil burner and candles; Penny usually only uses hers when the power’s out, which doesn’t happen now she’s living with someone who makes her pay bills before she buys shoes. (Her shoe racks are overflowing as it is; another thing that’s different to when Leonard lived here. He owns maybe three pairs of shoes.)

Maya only goes to the bathroom to reseat her plug so it rubs more firmly against her p-spot, and she only does it so that Stuart can take note of the way she’s walking when she comes back and know that she’s doing as she was told. They’ll never be the 24/7 Master/slave couple type, but it’s fun to play publicly sometimes; he’s already told her that next time they visit his parents there’ll possibly be beach sex, which will be around Christmas time. He’s growing and changing, in his own way, nearly as much as she is. She’s noticed he’s a lot more confident in his daily life as well, although his new therapist probably has a lot to do with that.

They’ve talked a lot about why he needs therapy, considering he had a reasonably good childhood. It’s nothing he’s ever been able to explain, beyond the fact that talking helps in general, mainly to someone who’s a little removed from his life and also nonjudgmental. Having a therapist who doesn’t judge him for having a trans woman for a girlfriend helps a lot. (His former therapist is now on the anti-trans warning list, courtesy of Danielle.)

Stuart’s eyes light up when Maya comes out of the bathroom, and he screws up on a pickpocket check, although that’s probably out of sheer bad luck on the game’s part. The target gets angry and all of a sudden the party have to rally around, but it’s too late for Stuart’s halfling.

“Maybe we should call it a night,” he says smoothly.

Leonard looks at Priya, who gives him a sultry smile. “Maybe we should.”

Bernadette drains her glass and jumps unsteadily to her feet. “Gaming adjourned,” she announces, and that’s that.

 

This time it’s Maya’s turn to be cuffed and teased, and Stuart does a thorough job of it. He lets her take the plug out to shower, but she’s still stretched when he goes down on her, and she nearly screams when he slips two fingers inside her.

When he moves up to straddle her face, he tastes of the lemon soap they’re using at the moment and of a musky taste that’s just pure him. He’s practically dripping pre-come and Maya starts giggling.

“What?”

Maya pushes his cock out of her mouth with her tongue and says, “All that’s missing is the tequila. We have lemon, we have salt...” She tongues the beads of pre-come from the head of his cock and he grabs the headboard and pushes into her mouth and she tilts her head back, taking all of him in. It’s uncomfortable in a good way. Her tongue strokes the length of him and he lets out a choked cry and pulls out, moving back down the bed and into her in one economical movement. Sometimes they have sex without a condom now just because they can and it feels different; it’s messy but Maya loves the way she can feel Stuart coming deep inside her. She suspects she’ll love it even more when he’s coming in her vagina, when she has one.

And the time is passing, counting down, to when she will.

 

Wedding planning and work and sex and more art commissions for Stuart help to make September pass faster. They make plans to go to Stuart’s parents place for Christmas; Annie will be there as well, and Stuart’s aunt Audrey and cousin Dale. Maya’s met Dale once or twice; he’s stood in for Stuart at the store when needed, like over Comic-Con weekend.

Stuart changes the store’s opening hours to open a little later, since there’s not usually a morning crowd. His customers usually come in at lunchtime or after work, and so he starts using the mornings for art commissions or just to go out and draw. More stores in the area decide they want his art on their walls, and he works out a rate to charge that includes the cost of the paint as well as labor, so he doesn’t have to dip into their savings for materials. He paints everything from cupcakes to skulls and crossbones to wine bottles, depending on the location, and sometimes turns up to work at the Comics Center with his paint-stained flannel shirt on, which gets him a lot of admiring attention from the few female patrons of the place. Maya gets jealous and Stuart threatens to work topless instead. He gets permission from the landlord to repaint the apartment, and does it barefoot and shirtless in jeans, and Maya can’t keep from dragging him onto the couch four times during the weekend and having her wicked way with him. The couch ends up with paint on it and neither of them care.

Once the apartment’s done it looks a lot different. Stuart’s done two feature walls, one in the living room behind the television and one in the bedroom behind the head of the bed, in burnt sienna; the rest of the walls are a light yellow ochre, except for the bathroom, which is Maya’s favorite jade green in a muted tone. It’s his big project for the month.

Maya’s big project for the month is getting through it without going mad now that she’s off her hormones prefatory to getting her surgery. She vacillates between being okay and wild bouts of body dysphoria where she doesn’t want to be touched or even looked at. Siebert personally approves her to work from home for the last two weeks of September; she decides he’s getting a wedding invitation just for that, let alone everything else.

Her surgery date is the fifth of October, the day before her birthday. It seems like the best present she could possibly get.

 

**Then (October 2010): Realizing**

“You cosplay as a girl a lot,” Howard casually remarks one night when they’re flipping through comics at the Comic Center. “How come?”

“I’m bucking the trend, dude.”

“You’re really not, you know. Heaps of guys dress as girls. It’s not original anymore.”

Raj shrugs uncomfortably. “At least I rock it.”

“True, true.” Howard drops it there. Raj is relieved.

The relief fades when the realization sinks in: it’s not playing.

Ironically enough, it’s Raj’s birthday.

When he gets home that night he looks in the mirror and sees his familiar face looking back, and he looks like a stranger to himself.

“Am I really not male?” he asks himself, but his reflection has no reply for him, and his Magic 8 Ball is likewise unhelpful. _Ask again later_.

Finally he turns to the best resource he knows of; the internet. He Googles “transsexual men” and then after getting no help changes it to “transsexual women”. As he reads, he gets more and more enlightened. Things are starting to make much more sense.

Unfortunately, they’re also scary as hell.

But when she finally lifts her gaze from the monitor and sees her Uhura dress hanging in the corner, the pieces fall into place.

She cries for hours and doesn’t fall asleep until after dawn, the tears drying on her cheeks, but she also feels a strange inner peace now that she knows.

She isn’t sure what to do first with this knowledge. She goes out and buys a green sari, claiming it’s for her mother when the shop assistant gives her a quizzical look. When she gets home and puts it on for the first time, going without underwear because she has no idea how to buy women’s underwear without getting asked some really uncomfortable questions, she feels like she’s slipping out of a costume and into reality.

Eventually she bites the bullet and finds a therapist, also via Google, who claims to be trans-friendly (she has already discovered a list of people who aren’t, and there are a lot of them), and makes an appointment. Dr Ryan emails her a questionnaire to fill out and the first hurdle is the gender question: male, female, or other. Raj hesitates for a full ten minutes before ticking the “female” box, and it’s like someone has taken a boulder off her chest.

This is right. This is her. She’s not male, after all. She’s been living a lie for years.

Her first therapy appointment comes around quickly; she tells the others she’s going to Pilates.

Dr Ryan ushers her into the small office, shows her to a seat, and says, “So, what brings you here?” as though she hadn’t already filled out the questionnaire that the therapist has sitting right there on her desk.

Raj picks at a loose thread on her vest and says, “I’m a woman.”


	15. chapter fourteen: thank you for loving me at my worst

**Now (October-December 2011): Healing**

The first thing Maya feels when she wakes up is a pain that goes all the way into her, and she starts crying helplessly. A warm hand closes over hers and she clings to it like a lifeline.

“It’s okay, Maya. Dr Rumer will be back in a minute and you’ll get painkillers.” Sarah’s voice is an oasis of calm blue in the flaring red and black pain. “Hang in there, sis. It’s okay. You’re okay. Everything went well.”

“Sarah, you need to let her sleep,” Dr Rumer says. Maya feels the pinch of a needle and gratefully sinks back into the haze of sleep, where the pain isn’t.

 

She’s infinitely grateful for Sarah and Annie and Amy over the next few days. They all take turns coming in to visit her. Sarah calms her with stories of how well her own surgery has healed. Annie rhapsodizes about the photos of the Athenaeum that Maya emailed her. Amy tries to get her to commit to a color for bridesmaid dresses with no luck; she needs time to think about what will work with red. She’s already decided she wants plain red roses for her bouquet with some greenery as well, and she’s considering forget-me-nots for her “something blue”. It’s hard to wedding plan through the pain, but it’s a nice distraction.

She calls Stuart every day to make sure he’s doing well without her. She isn’t coping very well without him, but every time she uses her dilator or touches herself down there to put antiseptic cream on around her stitches, she thinks about when she’ll be healed and he can be in her. It’s another nice distraction from the pain, which fades to a dull ache after a couple of days. She cries almost every time she calls him, annoyed at herself, but unable to keep her wobbly hormones in check.

They have to take a couple of adjoining hotel rooms instead of just one. Annie’s got a lot of studying to do but drives down anyway to see her, bringing a carload of textbooks. She’s already listed Maya as her sister on Facebook. Maya makes regular updates about her surgery, couching them in polite, circumspect words mostly for Nanda and Manoj’s sakes. She gets a lot of replies from Sarah even though Sarah is on the next bed five feet away. It’s comforting to have the instant support, especially when Priya starts getting abusive messages on her wall about her “brother”. Sarah and Danielle both jump in there to defend her and Priya has to do a lot of deleting of people she thought were friends.

After the long wait through Sarah’s recovery, Maya’s own passes more smoothly than she’d expected. She has her own bouts of crying in the bathroom, mostly when she’s trying to dilate and it hurts to stretch the newly moved flesh, but they pass.

All the bad things pass.

She finally gets to go back on her hormones, not quite as high a dose as before, and it settles her moods down but makes her breasts hurt a little, like they did in the beginning. But the pain passes as well, with the assistance of some painkillers and a couple of drinks from the hotel mini bar – she’s not really supposed to have alcohol, but the tiny bottles are _so_ appealing, and she makes White Russians a la Priya with the single servings of creamer, just to remind herself of her sister.

Sarah surprises her with a gift on the last day of a bullet vibe billed as the Seven Deadly Sins. It has seven different settings. Maya tests it out in the palm of her hand and decides the fourth setting – one that builds to a plateau and drops off repeatedly – is probably going to be her favorite. She likes that it has a remote control and figures she’ll let Stuart take charge of that after she’s had a chance to play with it herself.

The best part is that now she sees herself whole when she looks in the mirror, just like Sarah said.

 

The flight home is almost unbearably uncomfortable. She reclines her seat when she can, because sitting up hurts. She has to dilate in the bathroom, too scared to go without it even for the length of the flight to Denver. She’s getting sick of Denver Airport, but at least this time there isn’t a last minute change of gates. She knows she couldn’t run from one end of the terminal to the other again.

Stuart welcomes her home with a cautious kiss on the cheek.

“Oh, for God’s sake, I didn’t have surgery on my face,” Maya grouches, and she gets a proper kiss. Amy takes advantage of the greeting to plant one on Sheldon, who looks stunned but not entirely displeased. They gather their luggage onto a trolley and walk out to Stuart’s car. Maya can’t drive yet and is supposed to be taking more time off work, but Sheldon has brought her a whole stack of journals to read while she’s at home.

 

As promised, there’s a party in the comic book store a week later, although it’s ostensibly for Maya’s birthday and not for her surgery. Stuart gives her the Evenstar pendant that he’d drawn in his little sketchbook; it looks custom made instead of like all the ones she’s seen on eBay, and she ends up wearing it, her engagement ring, and her navel ring, and nothing else to bed that night. There’s not a lot they can do at this stage in her recovery, but Stuart makes her come with the most light careful touches he can, and Maya’s just impressed at the fact that she actually gets wet. Not as wet as if she were cisgendered, maybe, but it’s her own arousal, and Stuart licks his fingers afterward with obvious pleasure.

“You’re still delicious,” he informs her.

“Thank you.” Maya rolls over and plants her face in his lap. “So are you...”

“Mmmm,” is his only response.

They don’t get a lot of sleep that night; it’s lucky Stuart planned ahead and declared the store closed on Sunday. They may not be able to do everything they’d like to yet, but there’s still a lot they _can_ do.

 

The rest of October drags by until the annual Halloween party at Stuart’s store. They attend as Mal and Inara. Leonard comes as Wash and, to everyone’s surprise, Sheldon comes as Zoë, wearing a long wig and what looks suspiciously like his paintball gear. Howard is a disturbingly short Jayne; Bernadette dyes her hair and grubbies up as Kaylee. Penny comes as a catgirl, much to the delight of several people, including Goth Sarah, who’s back to black hair as  Death. Priya doesn’t attend; she has a case she’s defending that she needs to read up on, or at least that’s her excuse. Amy comes as River, barefoot in a floaty dress, wearing contact lenses just for the occasion. Maya counts herself privileged in a strange way when she catches Zoë and River kissing in the back room - Zoë looks as surprised as anyone can with their eyes shut - and sneaks off to tell Stuart, who arches one eyebrow and says, “Wash will kill them if he finds out.”

Wash doesn’t kill them, but he does insist on going to see the evidence for himself.

“Well,” he says when he returns, “I guess Sheldon’s not so asexual after all.”

“Either that or he just really likes her without her glasses,” Maya says.

“What’s going on?” Howard asks, popping up out of apparently nowhere.

“Zoë and River are kissing.”

Howard gets his _whoa, hot lesbians_ face on and then remembers who Zoë and River are and it turns into an _oh my God are you kidding_ look instead. He peeks into the back room and comes back looking even more shocked.

“I need a drink,” he announces.

Maya gets a tray of vodka shots in little disposable cups. Howard downs two of them in rapid succession and shakes his head. Then there’s a loud screech from the doorway into the back room; it seems Penny’s spotted the duo as well. Maya can’t help laughing as Penny comes tearing across the room to tell everyone and finds out that they already know.

Amy strolls nonchalantly out a minute later, managing a look of surprising innocence. Sheldon comes out after her, wig rumpled and lipstick smeared across his mouth. Maya takes pity on him and hands him a napkin.

“Enjoying yourself?” she asks sweetly.

“More than I expected to, actually.” He looks in Amy’s general direction and mutters something that sounds like, “Vixen.” He doesn’t look unhappy about the situation at all, except possibly the part where Howard’s leering at him and Bernadette looks ready to drag Amy into a corner and – there she goes, it’s girl talk time, and she’s snagged Penny (and half a dozen shots) as well.

Maya goes over to join them. Amy looks positively radiant, pink-cheeked with joy and the vodka shot she’s just downed. Penny’s helping her fix her lipstick.

“So is he a good kisser?” she demands just as Maya joins the group.

“I don’t really have any basis for comparison, but I believe so,” Amy says. “Besides, it’s a step in the right direction.”

“Do you think someone can just stop being asexual like that?” Bernadette asks, fiddling with one of her hair combs.

“I have to question whether he’s genuinely asexual or was just too focused on his work before to know what could be appealing,” Amy says.

“There’s your next research project,” Maya says, “once you’re done with me.” Amy gets an acquisitive gleam in her eye; Maya can practically see visions of electrodes dancing in her head.

“Was Leonard as focused on his work when you were first together, Penny?” she asks.

“Not for long,” Penny says, looking down at her cleavage peeking out from black fur, and there’s a general laugh. Maya glances over at Sheldon, who’s leaning against the counter talking to Stuart; he flinches a little at the laughter but Stuart puts one hand on his arm and he visibly relaxes. Maya wonders idly if Stuart finds Sheldon as Zoë appealing in the same way he finds her appealing as Inara, then firmly banishes the thought from her mind.

Sarah snakes a hand in past her to snag a vodka shot. “Nice party,” she says. “Is there an afterparty? I’d like to talk to you about how you’re feeling.”

“What are you, my therapist?”

“I have a vested interest in your recovery,” Sarah says with a completely straight face before going over to Stuart to whisper something in his ear.

It seems that not everything that happens at Comic-Con is going to be confined solely to Comic-Con after all.

 

Stuart has to leave Maya out of the costume competition in case he gets accused of bias and ends up judging Leonard and Sheldon as best couple (to much laughter from the crowd), Sarah as best solo female, and Lonely Larry – who’s dressed as Roland Deschain, the gunslinger from Stephen King’s _Dark Tower_ series – as best solo male.

Finally, he announces Larry, Wil, and a girl in a wheelchair who Maya doesn’t initially recognize as best group costume. It’s only when the girl wheels to the front that she realizes it’s Wil’s wife Anne. They’re the three main adult characters – Roland, Eddie, and Susannah – from the _Dark Tower_ series. Stuart uses the opportunity to sell a few copies of _The Gunslinger Born_ comic books to people who don’t recognize the characters, along with the _Those Left Behind_ comic books to the Firefly fans.

The party dissipates after that. Penny leaves with Larry, of all people, who looks dazed. The others trickle out in dribs and drabs. Finally it’s just Maya, Stuart, and Sarah, who’s sitting on the edge of the counter swinging her legs idly. She’s obviously determined to come home with them, and Stuart ends up driving Maya’s car back to the apartment while Maya and Sarah brazenly make out in the back seat.

At almost a month’s healing, Maya’s still not quite ready for absolutely anything, but Sarah is gentle with her lips and tongue and Maya comes hard and fast. Sarah daringly slips one finger into her vagina and one into her ass and wriggles them and Maya comes again, riding the aftershocks of the first climax right up into the second. She’s going to have to teach Stuart that trick.

She lies there, trying to get her breathing back to normal, and watches Sarah move atop Stuart, making slow circles with her hips. Stuart clings to her thighs and looks up at her with the expression he usually gets on his face just before he starts pleading, but he doesn’t beg her. Sarah gets tired of playing and rides him faster and Maya leans in to kiss him and catch his cry as he comes.

Sarah doesn’t make excuses this time; she just dresses and leaves without fanfare, but with goodbye kisses for them both. She’s a strange woman, but fun to play with, and Maya ventures the idea that maybe they’ll share a room at Comic-Con in 2012.

“Maybe,” Sarah says enigmatically, winking one dark eye slowly before ghosting out of the apartment.

“She’s weird,” Stuart says.

“You weren’t complaining twenty minutes ago.”

“You don’t mind, do you? I don’t mind her doing stuff to you.” Stuart doesn’t blush as readily any more as he used to, but he goes pink now.

“I know you like watching,” Maya says. “I like watching you with her, too. I’m imagining when it’ll be my turn.” She sighs. “I wish I didn’t have to wait.”

“We’re not going to risk your recovery by doing anything early,” Stuart says firmly, and Maya gives an even more exaggerated sigh, and Stuart smacks her ass through the robe she’s thrown on.

 

November arrives with snow flurries and a sudden drop in temperature. Maya has to go shopping for new jeans just because the old ones are getting worn; she finds a place that can copy the pattern of embroidered butterflies and flowers up the legs from her favorite pair, and buys new sweaters while she’s waiting for the job to be done. The days of sweater vests are long behind her now; she buys fluffy angora instead and delights in the soft feeling of it against her skin. She buys new work shirts as well to go with her long skirts.

Her last stop on her shopping trip is a tattoo place not far from Los Robles, over on Lake Avenue, where she hands over the hummingbird design that Stuart drew for her and a fifty dollar deposit and makes an appointment for the following weekend. She gets the feeling she’s lucky to have gotten in so soon; the place is literally buzzing with activity. One girl’s having a butterfly rendered just over her left nipple, sitting casually in full view of the rest of the store, and Maya’s glad she’s just getting her ankle done. She ended up going with the hummingbird because it seems like every other piece of flash on the wall involves dolphins and she wants to be a little different. Not that she isn’t already different enough.

“I’m not sure how well the color will show up on your skin,” the artist says frankly, looking at the green and red that Stuart’s used on the design, “but we can always turn it into a silhouette if it doesn’t work so well.”

As it turns out when she goes back the color takes perfectly well. The outline hurts a lot, but it’s nothing compared to the constant burning feeling of the color going on. She endures it, though, reminding herself that she’s felt more pain recently for something she can’t even show off in public. (Or, at least, shouldn’t. Sarah’s posted healed post-surgery pictures on Fetlife, and the notion is terribly tempting.) There’s a lot of blood mingling with the red ink, turning it brown, and the artist has to scrub at her skin with a wet paper towel to remove it, and that hurts the worst of all.

She ends up with her ankle smeared with baby ointment and wrapped in cling film and if she hadn’t seen it on other people she would have thought it was a joke. The pain settles down to a slow burn once she gets home and puts her foot up on a pillow, and she takes the opportunity to do her dilation in relative comfort. She’s been stuck with doing it at work in the disabled bathroom, which is profoundly not fun.

Just dilating gets boring fast, and she ends up pulling out the bullet vibe that Sarah gave her after her surgery, turning it on in the palm of her hand to play with the settings before moving it between her legs to settle it against her clit. The feeling is sudden and intense, like nothing she’s quite felt before, even with her careful hands-only masturbation, and she gasps and writhes on the bed, closing her thighs together, which only presses the bullet in tighter against her clit. She feels like her skin’s going tight and hot all over her body. The dilator hurts inside her but then she’s coming and forgets all about it for a few blissful minutes as wave after wave of pleasure breaks over her. She feels like she could die of it and be happy.

Stuart comes in a few minutes later to find her lying blissed out on the bed. He looks at her, eyes going from the silver bullet to her ankle and back again.

“Someone’s been having an interesting time without me.”

“I’m sorry. I got bored dilating.” She slips the dilator out and drops it hastily into the box where she keeps those supplies; for some reason she feels embarrassed doing it around Stuart. He joins her on the bed, sitting by her feet to examine his artwork on her ankle.

“I’m not actually mad at you, you know.”

“I know. I just thought I was safer apologizing just in case.”

“Oh, I’ll let you know if I’m ever mad at you for playing with yourself, but that’ll be like never.” He scoots up the bed to kiss her. “Did the tattoo hurt?”

“It still hurts. Everything hurts.” This isn’t quite true, because she’s still got some interesting ripples going through her, aftershocks from coming so hard, but “almost everything hurts” won’t win her the same sympathy. He kisses her long and slow and curls his fingers through her hair.

“Love you,” he says quietly.

“I love you too.”

 

Her next big shopping spree is Christmas shopping. Stuart seems to have decided she’s in charge of doing all the shopping for his family as well as her friends, if only because she’s going out anyway. She ends up settling on wine and chocolates for Harry and Diane, wine and chocolates for Annie, and wine and chocolates for Audrey and Dale, even if Dale’s probably not old enough to drink yet (she’s never figured out how old he is, but he looks about twelve). Stuart checks her purchases and tells her they look good, and adds the latest Warlords expansion for Dale.

She feels boring just getting art supplies for Stuart, but he goes through them so fast these days that they’re always useful. She gets gaming stuff for the guys and goes back to wine and chocolates for the girls. Stuart contributes by making cards for everyone, drawing Christmas trees (or, in Howard’s case, a menorah) on pretty paper.

Caltech goes quiet as Christmas break approaches. Maya decorates her office with tinsel and lights and a miniature tree; she doesn’t have the same potential explosion issues as Leonard or Howard. Sheldon refuses to get into the spirit; Stuart draws a picture of him as the Grinch and Maya tapes it to his office door. Sheldon actually laughs at it and leaves it up.

She passes the six week mark of her recovery midway through December, but doesn’t take advantage of the implied sexual freedom that gives her straight away. She wants to, but at the same time she’s scared; there are days when she feels awfully fragile down there, especially after she’s been to see Latisha, who’s now waxing her bikini line as well as her legs, and making much of her rearranged body when she does it.

Also, she sort of wants to wait for Christmas. Christmas, or maybe New Year’s; she likes the idea of ringing in the New Year with Stuart in bed. She could swear she wasn’t always this obsessed with sex, but she really likes sex-positive Maya. Maya’s a hell of a lot more fun to be than Raj was, she sometimes thinks, although it’s not something she’d ever say to anyone else. Maya gets to go out on girls’ nights. Raj was only one step up from being a shut-in aside from work because Sheldon refused to relocate things like Halo night from his apartment. Maya has a loving fiancé. Raj couldn’t even talk to women. Maya’s getting married. Raj... she doesn’t know if Raj ever would have.

She talks about some of this with Cecilia in the end, worried that she’s overthinking things, and Cecilia gives her a candy bracelet to chew on during the session because for once there aren’t any loose threads on her clothes to pick at.

“Does it really bother you what Raj might or might not have done considering you’re not him anymore?” she asks.

“Sort of. I just... I don’t know. I don’t like thinking about this other life where I might have ended up a crazy cat dude living alone.”

“Have you considered that Stuart might have been attracted to you anyway?”

“I don’t think he would.”

“I don’t think you’ve asked,” Cecilia counters.

“Should I?”

“Why not? He’s already told you he’s not sure if he’s a hundred percent straight, so you never know; you might have been the right person for him even if you weren’t trans.”

“Well...”

“Come on, Maya. If it’s on your mind it’s better to get it out in the open.”

“You always say that.”

“That’s because it’s always true. It’s safer than bottling everything up, anyway.” She gives Maya a serious look. “How would you rate your general mood on a scale of one to ten?”

“Right now, or since I last saw you?”

“Since you last saw me.”

“Probably about a six,” Maya admits. “Christmas shopping’s stressed me out, I’m scared to have sex in case I break myself, and I can’t stop thinking about what might have been.”

“In that case, go home and talk to your fiancé and tell him everything that’s on your mind. Except the Christmas shopping. That’s nothing. Everyone worries about that.”

“Have you finished yours?”

“Don’t start me on that subject or I’ll need to lie on the couch myself.” It’s a bad joke – the office has a variety of chairs but not a couch – but Maya laughs anyway.

She obediently poses the question to Stuart when she gets home, and Stuart doesn’t answer for a long time, clearly thinking hard.

“Looking back on it... yeah, maybe. You were definitely the most interesting out of your group. You still are,” he adds. “I could’ve done worse.” Maya smacks his arm and Stuart yelps. “Well, I don’t know. It’s not like I was having any luck with women. I did tell you how my second date with Penny turned out, right?”

“Yes. Terribly.”

“Anyway. As far as the sex goes, we’ll wait until you’re ready. I want you, but I don’t want to hurt you.” He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses it in such a courtly way that Maya has to laugh a little.

 

Maya wakes up on Christmas morning feeling a little disoriented and confused, not least because Annie’s bouncing on the foot of the bed.

“Come on, you two, breakfast’s ready.”

“Merry Christmas to you too.” Stuart mumbles, attempting to pull the pillow over his head. Annie tears it away and grabs his hand, pulling him out of bed. It’s lucky he’s not naked; they’ve taken to sleeping that way sometimes, but not here.

As usual, Diane has made an excessive amount of food, and there’s champagne for breakfast as well; she proposes a toast to Stuart and Maya, since it’s the first time they’ve all been together in person since the engagement. Annie drinks her glass of champagne off in one long draught and is very giggly for the rest of the morning.

Audrey and Dale aren’t due to arrive until lunchtime, so Maya and Stuart go for a walk down along the beach. There’s a cold wind blowing, whipping the waves up, and the air smells good and clean. They have the beach to themselves; everyone else is either celebrating Christmas or smarter than to go out on the beach in chilly weather. There are a few sailboats out, catching the wind, tacking back and forth across the dull grey sea; quite possibly Christmas gifts to lucky husbands or spoilt kids.

They find a sheltered spot to sit down, on a pile of rocks near the water’s edge. Stuart finds a flat stone and completely fails to skip it across the roiling sea. There’s a tide pool beside them with a pissed-off looking crab in it that waves its pincers at them when Stuart drops another stone beside it and scuttles sideways into a mass of seaweed.

“You’re so mean sometimes,” Maya says.

“You like it when I’m mean,” Stuart responds, sliding his hand down her back to cup and then pinch her ass.

“Did that crab just nip me?” Maya pretends not to notice his hand. “I could swear something just got my butt.”

Stuart squeezes a little more meaningfully and Maya gives in and kisses him, the wind blowing her hair into their faces. It’s getting to the point where she’ll have to start tying it back on days like this. She’s vaguely distracted by thinking about Penny’s Penny Blossoms and wondering if Penny might be persuaded to expand her range into other hair accessories, and Stuart nips her lip to get her attention back. It only distracts her further by making her think about what else they could be doing; she can feel herself getting a little wet, and not because the waves are splashing up so close to them.

“Stuart, you’re driving me crazy.”

His eyes have gone dark. “That’s the point,” he says softly, leaning in to scrape his teeth along her bottom lip again. She retaliates by sucking on the tip of his tongue and running her hand up his thigh, and Stuart makes a disgruntled noise and licks at her lip in a rather promising way.

It’s too windy to stay out there for long, though, and soon they return to the house, walking hand in hand, where Diane calls them into the kitchen so they can talk about wedding plans while she cooks. Harry’s slow-roasting pork on the outside grill; it smells tantalizing.

“It’s such a shame your parents won’t be here for the wedding,” Diane says, basting the turkey energetically.

“They already gave me up, they don’t get to give me away,” Maya says. “I was wondering if you’d say something to accept me into the Bloom family instead of that, and my sister’s going to sort of give me away. Only she’s been arguing about how sexist that tradition is, but I want to do _something_.”

“Oh, sweetheart, we’d love to do that. It sounds like an ideal substitute.” Diane pauses to hug her, not for the last time. “Do you have something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue planned yet?”

“Well, technically my dress is old, not new, so I thought I’d get new underwear. I don’t know what to have for something borrowed, but the forget-me-nots in my bouquet will be blue.” Maya runs upstairs – she can move a lot faster now than she first could after the surgery – and brings her scrapbook down. Stuart’s drawn the bouquet on the page facing the photo of the dress that she’s pasted in. Diane calls Annie in from the living room, where she’s watching _It’s A Wonderful Life_ with her boyfriend Dale – as opposed to cousin Dale. Annie admires the pictures, as much for Stuart’s ability to draw as the actual images themselves.

“When I own my own place, I’m getting Stuie to do a mural on the wall of the sea, so even if I end up stuck in New York I’ll still be able to see Santa Monica,” she says, tracing the lines on the paper with a fingertip.

“You’re not really thinking about staying in New York for good, are you?” Diane asks, a frown line appearing between her eyebrows.

“Well, Dale might be able to move here, I guess, but he’s got a good business there, and I don’t want to uproot him.”

“That’s all right, at least I’ll have one daughter in the area,” Diane says, hugging Maya again, who almost starts crying.

“I’ll always be your favorite though, right?” Annie asks.

“That depends on how well you make the gravy.”

“What are you all laughing at?” Harry asks, entering the kitchen a minute later.

“Apparently the family favorite hierarchy’s being determined by cooking ability,” Stuart explains.

“That leaves you out, then.”

“He makes good tacos,” Maya offers.

“That’s because he can follow the instructions on the packet,” Annie says. “Have you ever seen him try to make anything from scratch?”

“Shut up,” Stuart says, and that’s when the doorbell rings. Annie forgets the argument and thunders through the house to open the door.

It’s easy to see Audrey is Harry’s sister; she has the same curly brown hair, quite different to Diane and Annie’s straight, almost black hair. Dale’s hanging back behind her, looking bored, but brightens up when he recognizes Maya, and soon they’re playing one on one Warlords while Stuart settles in to watch the end of the movie and Annie busies herself mixing sauce for the cocktail shrimp. Maya wins, but Dale puts up a good fight, and Annie’s boyfriend and Stuart join in for the next round, while Annie pretends to look put upon as she serves the shrimp.

Stuart wins the next round and Diane announces that his prize is to set the long table in the dining room. Maya goes upstairs to lock herself in the bedroom and do her dilation. She doesn’t have to do it as often any more but it will be something she has to keep doing unless she wants to lose function in her vagina, and she really doesn’t want to do that until she’s had a chance to use it.

She thinks she has thought of every possible way their first time – as it were – could play out. She’s just hoping it won’t hurt, although she’s given herself more than enough recovery time. She lies back on the bed, trying to distract herself from the feeling of the rigid plastic inside her. She picks up her phone with her free hand and texts Sarah in Minnesota to wish her a merry Christmas.

Sarah texts back a minute later, _Blessed Yule and Io Saturnalia, sis_ , and Maya has to laugh. _What are you doing for the day?_

 _Basting myself like a turkey_ , Maya writes back. _Then eating actual turkey and passing out on the couch from a tryptophan overdose_. _You?_

_Same here, except I have a ritual to go to tonight._

_Have fun._

_I plan to! XOXO_

Maya finishes up and washes her hands thoroughly before going downstairs. Annie’s put on another movie – no, wait, it’s an episode of _The X Files_ , the one with the haunted house on Christmas Eve. Even cousin Dale looks interested in that.

It turns out he’s actually twenty-four, even if he does look a lot younger. He and Audrey live in Altadena, not all that far from Howard’s place. But then, compared to the distance between California and New York, anywhere else is not all that far from Howard’s place, and Maya tries not to make too much of a point about it, remembering the pained look on Diane’s face when Annie had insinuated she’d be staying in New York.

Before lunch they exchange gifts. Annie opens her chocolates immediately and eats all the strawberry creams, ignoring her mother’s admonitions to not spoil her appetite. Dale’s thrilled with his Warlords expansion set and makes Maya promise to have a rematch after lunch.

The rest of the day passes in an indolent haze of food and resting and gaming. Annie and Stuart squabble over the second turkey drumstick until Audrey settles it by taking it for herself. Maya can’t help but laugh; she remembers fighting with Priya over petty things the same way when she was young, and she doesn’t think they’ve quite grown out of it either.

She’s sorry when the day is over and they go to bed, even though it’s not until late. She loves her new family already; even if it’s not all legal yet, this still feels like home.

 

**Then (November 2011): Homing**

Annie misses Santa Monica right down to her bones. If she weren’t on a scholarship she’d almost be tempted to drop everything and move back to California, Dale or no Dale. But she’s getting a (sort of ) free ride, and she’s getting good marks, and she wants to do more with her life than teaching English like her mother. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but she knows that becoming a doctor will open up a whole new world of possibilities for her. Maybe she’ll be able to persuade Dale to relocate to California with her and open a law firm with Maya’s sister Priya. He just has so many people that he’s already working for, both paid and pro bono, in New York that she’s afraid to even ask.

She does ask, though, the same day as she asks him to come to Santa Monica for Christmas to meet her family, and while he doesn’t say yes right away, he doesn’t say no either. He agrees readily to Christmas, which she takes as a good sign. Or a good start, anyway.

“Just one thing,” she says as he’s about to leave for work. They’re at his place this time; he has a better kitchen and a less squeaky bed.

“Hmmm?” He’s polishing his glasses and squints at her.

“Stuart’s girlfriend. Fiancée. She’s transgendered. Is that gonna be a problem?”

“Why would it be a problem? She’s not _my_ fiancée.”

“So you’d have a problem dating someone who was trans?”

“Is there something you’re not telling me? Because I’ve seen you naked plenty of times and I haven’t noticed your penis.”

“Shut up, Dale, this is serious. I need to know if you’d have a problem, because if there’s going to be a problem... she’s family now, that’s all.”

“There’s no problem,” Dale says, and kisses her, and she makes him late for work for the second time that month, but neither of them mind.

She has a little time to kill before she goes to rounds, and she spends it sitting in the bedroom looking at the wall, imagining the seagulls back home and the waves splashing up against Santa Monica Pier. She knows she’s homesick; she wishes she could be home for Thanksgiving but she’s got too much else to do.

She’s thankful for Christmas. At least she has Christmas.


	16. epilogue: how you grow emotionally

**Now (December 2011-January 2012): Loving**

The television is on showing Times Square, eleven minutes before midnight, but neither Maya nor Stuart are paying attention to it. They’ve been kissing since eleven-thirty, unable to wait until the ball drops. Maya’s top and bra are mysteriously missing; Stuart’s shirt and t-shirt are on the floor.

A few minutes later the couch gets uncomfortable and they move by silent accord to the bedroom, where things only heat up even more. Stuart pushes Maya back against the pillows and drags her skirt and underwear off before sprawling on his stomach between her thighs and slowly tormenting her with his tongue and lips and fingers. He does it until she’s pleading with him to let her come, and when she does it’s like a bomb going off, radiating heat throughout her entire body.

Then at last he moves up the bed, slicks a little lube over her and himself just to be sure, and slips into her for the first time, and it feels like every cliché ever written: like becoming one, like coming home. He balances himself on his forearms over her, holding still for a moment to see how well she will adjust to this new situation.

“I love you,” he says quietly, as if there were any doubt.

“I love you too.” Maya slides her hands down his sides to grasp his ass and pull him as deep into her as she can, and moves her hips, and Stuart whimpers and begins to move within her. His strokes are gentle, languid to begin with, and then when she encourages him he moves a little faster, a look almost of wonder on his face. He closes his eyes and drops his forehead to her shoulder; she can feel his breathing rapid against her skin.

“Oh God, Stuart...” Her voice cracks on his name.

“Maya... Maya... Maya...”

Fortunately the neighbors don’t bang on the wall this time to disrupt them. It’s just the two of them, rocking together, safe in their big bed, Stuart buried to the hilt in Maya, telling her over and over he loves her as both of them build and build toward coming.

Finally he lets go within her and Maya follows him deliriously over the edge at the sensation of his climax inside her, at once so familiar and so strange and so new. She bites his shoulder sharply and Stuart whines in the back of his throat, fingers digging in where he’s clinging to her.

At some point it has become the New Year, and they celebrate the fact by making love again, this time with Maya on top and Stuart taking advantage of the position to play with her clit. Now that she’s actually doing it she doesn’t know what she was so afraid of; having him inside her just feels good, warm and alive and real, and he makes her come again twice before his own second orgasm, and she thinks muzzily that she could really get used to this whole multiple orgasms thing.

They curl around each other at last, physically and emotionally spent, and Stuart can’t keep the smile off his face. Maya doesn’t know what he’s smiling at – getting her off so often, or just being with her, or the whole situation – but she does know she loves the way his face lights up when he smiles.

“I love you,” he says again, holding her close.

“I love you too. Hey, we should get married or something,” Maya quips.

“That, right there? That’s one of the reasons I love you. You’re silly.”

“Not witty?”

“That too.”

Maya’s phone starts beeping with bottlenecked messages wishing her and Stuart a happy New Year. She valiantly ignores it for two minutes and then turns it off; she’ll reply in the morning. Right now all that matters, all the well-wishing and happiness she needs, is right here in this bed.

 

The next morning when she’s going through her Facebook notifications and replying to a few dozen New Year’s messages with a variety of thank yous and smiley faces just to keep it interesting, she sees that she has a message from Alan Masterton.

_I wanted to apologize for everything I did to you..._

Maya doesn’t read the rest of the message. Instead she blocks him. Then she unblocks him, writes back _Are you fucking kidding me?_ and blocks him again so she can’t find out whether he’s serious or not.

She rather suspects not.

Stuart brings her waffles over to the desk; they’re drizzled with honey and dusted with powdered sugar.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I can’t believe they let this douche anywhere near a computer.” Maya shows him the message and Stuart lets out a disbelieving laugh.

“Just ignore it. It’s all you can do. It’s not like you have to forgive him just because he’s asking for it. He’s probably just trying to weasel information out of you anyway.”

So that’s what she does. Apart from anything else, Stuart has a million ways to distract her.

 

**And Last (September 2012)**

Penny is working hard to keep from crying, using all her acting skills to be a smooth, professional celebrant, right up until the point where she informs Stuart and Maya that they can kiss. The second they part she’s throwing herself on them, clinging like a particularly insistent limpet. The rest of the group are no better, even Sheldon snaking one arm around Maya’s shoulders over Howard’s head. To cap it all Annie’s wormed her way in as well; Maya and Stuart are enveloped in a hug of blue and silver attendants.

Maya’s so nervous at the reception that she barely eats anything, although the Athenaeum put on an amazing buffet. It’s not as though she has anything to be nervous about, except for maybe having her hair fall out of the elaborate chignon it’s in, and Penny is on hairpin standby on top of everything else, so it’s not a major concern. She just has butterflies.

It’s already been a year and more for the two of them, but the song they’ve chosen for the first dance is the Zombies’ “This Will Be Our Year”, and the lyrics ring true as Stuart takes her hand and leads her out onto the dance floor. This _has_ taken a long time to come, but now it’s here, it’s all theirs.

Of course, there are parts of the next song that ring true as well, but as far as most of the guests are concerned they’ve picked Tom Lehrer’s “Masochism Tango” out of sheer quirkiness. Wil cuts in and spins Maya elaborately across the floor; Stuart and Penny are close behind them, and the floor fills up fast.

 

Maya is breathless and laughing by the end of the night. She signals the DJ to put on the final song, one that she’s picked herself and always somehow associated with Stuart: Lady Gaga’s “So Happy I Could Die”. They circle the room doling out hugs and kisses; he goes one way and she goes the other and they cross over in the middle.

Annie and Dale and Diane and Harry are waiting by the door, opposite Penny and Sheldon and Leonard and the rest of the gang. Maya doesn’t know who to save for last so she attempts to hug everyone at once. Stuart hangs back a little; it’s Leonard who reels him in by the tie and plants a smacker of a kiss on his cheek, to general laughter.

“Send us postcards from Disneyland,” Annie says.

“Bring back a princess,” Howard suggests.

“Already got one,” Stuart says smugly, earning himself a groan.

Their actual trip is slated to start in the morning. As they get into bed, though, Maya feels as though she’s already made the longest part of her life’s journey; this is just the reward she’s reaping for the long, long row she’s hoed and sown.

“Maya?”

“Mmmm?”

“What are you thinking?”

Maya doesn’t answer with words, instead pulling her new husband into her arms and showing him with kisses and touches and love just what it is that’s on her mind.

They finally fall asleep in each other’s arms just as the sun is coming up, the start of a new day and a new era in their joined lives.

**Author's Note:**

> The playlist that Meg made for me is available [here](http://www.4shared.com/zip/TnmtQMP0/transitionequlibrium.html) and contains the following tracks:
> 
> 1\. The Cat Empire - Protons, Neutrons, Electrons  
> 2\. Kate Miller-Heidke - Out and In  
> 3\. Washington - Plastic Bag  
> 4\. Hay Bax - Nobody's Home  
> 5\. Vika and Linda - Mama Shake That Thing  
> 6\. Missy Higgins - Stuff and Nonsense  
> 7\. The Grates - Science is Golden  
> 8\. Paul Dempsey - Fast Friends  
> 9\. The Bedroom Philosopher - Everybody's Got the Same Insecurities as You  
> 10\. Powderfinger - Pick You Up  
> 11\. Ben Lee - Apple Candy  
> 12\. Savage Garden - The Animal Song  
> 13\. Jet - Walk  
> 14\. Darren Hayes - When You Say You Love Me  
> 15\. The Whitlams - Thank You (For Loving Me At My Worst)  
> 16\. Kate Miller-Heidke - Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
> 
> I asked her for an Australian mix with a vague eye towards writing a fic around it. Then NaNoWriMo happened and the two things collided and this fic came out of it. I hope you've enjoyed it.


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